According to a New York Times report, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, recently highlighted his company’s $17.5 billion investment in artificial intelligence while speaking in New Delhi, emphasizing the potential benefits for India’s 1.4 billion citizens. At nearly the same time, Amazon announced its own ambitious plan, pledging $35 billion toward AI-driven projects across the country.
This influx of funds is part of a broader surge in investment in India’s data centers, cloud computing, and related infrastructure. Just two months before the Microsoft and Amazon announcements, Google had committed $15 billion to data centers in collaboration with Indian conglomerates Adani Group and Bharti Airtel.
Combined, these investments total $67.5 billion over the next five years, marking the start of a larger wave. Meta is reportedly building a facility near Google’s, and major Indian industrial houses such as Reliance and Tata are following suit.
“This is going to be one of the largest single-sector investments that India has ever seen,” said Somnath Mukherjee, chief investment officer at ASK Wealth Advisors in Mumbai.
While these sums are staggering by any standard, they are modest compared with the trillions at stake globally in AI development. Investors see India as a market with enormous growth potential. The country hosts nearly 20 percent of the world’s data but only 3 percent of its storage capacity. In comparison, the United States has far more data centers. Yet India’s population—the world’s largest—is still growing, and its economy is expanding at an even faster pace, creating fertile ground for these massive technology investments.
