Microsoft announced a series of wide-ranging artificial intelligence partnerships in core areas in India on Wednesday, a day after pledging to invest $3 billion over the next two years in the country as competition from rivals Google and Amazon intensifies.
The tech giant's chief executive, Satya Nadella (pictured above), announced agreements with five major organizations spanning rail, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and education.
This includes an agreement with India's Ministry of Electronics and IT, as part of which Microsoft will contribute to the ministry's IndiaAI Mission Datasets platform by supporting data collection and synthetic generation.
The company also plans to train 500,000 people in AI skills by 2026, and the companies will also establish AI centers of excellence called AI Catalysts to foster local AI innovation, with 20 national There are plans to set up an AI lab at a skills training institute.
RailTel, a government-backed company, has entered into a five-year partnership with Microsoft to drive “digital, cloud and AI transformation” in Indian railways. Apollo Hospitals plans to develop an AI “co-pilot” for medical services. Bajaj Finance, India's largest non-banking financial company, expects to save $18 million annually by 2026 by implementing AI. Edtech startup Upgrad is collaborating with Microsoft to build applications for using AI in the workplace.
The move comes as Google and Amazon race to expand their AI products and woo Indian companies, and Nvidia has a deal to supply AI chips to India's biggest companies.
In October, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced a partnership with Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries to build AI infrastructure. The chip designer also signed deals with Tata Communications and Yotta Data Services to deploy thousands of H100 chips.
Google, which has been in India for over 20 years, recently introduced new AI-powered tools to help build a digital presence for Indian retailers.