By Kimberley Kao
Microsoft is planning new investments totaling close to $23 billion in artificial intelligence, with a significant chunk set aside for India, marking its largest-ever investment in Asia.
The U.S. tech giant said Tuesday that it will invest US$17.5 billion in India over the next four years to advance the country's cloud and AI infrastructure, skilling and ongoing operations. Microsoft would have the largest hyperscale presence in the country, with a new data center becoming operational in mid-2026.
The latest investment plan is in addition to the US$3 billion in spending announced earlier this year.
The spending will "help build the infrastructure, skills, and sovereign capabilities needed for India's AI first future," Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella said in a post on X.
The investment came after Nadella's meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who also met with the CEOs of Intel and Cognizant.
Microsoft separately disclosed an additional investment of 7.5 billion Canadian dollars, equivalent to US$5.42 billion, in the next two years, to expand its Azure data-center regions in Canada. New cloud capacity is expected to come online in the second half of 2026. The move is part of the company's total planned spending of C$19 billion between 2023 and 2027.
Demand for the tech giant's cloud services is so great that Microsoft will boost its AI capacity by more than 80% this year and double its total data-center footprint in the next two years, Nadella told investors in October.
The company's closely watched Azure cloud business grew by about 40% for its first fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, also topping expectations.
Tech giants such as OpenAI, Meta and Alphabet have been pouring money into chips, data centers and electrical power at historical levels.
India has attracted billions of dollars from major technology companies this year. Google has pledged $15 billion to establish its first AI hub in the country, while Amazon's cloud unit plans to spend over $8 billion in the country.
Write to Kimberley Kao at kimberley.kao@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-09-25 2153ET
