'Fastest AI Diffusion Will Win': Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Explains Why India Has An Edge

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Wednesday said India is uniquely positioned to lead the world in AI adoption, powered by a "virtuous cycle of policies, programmes, tech stack and a massive domestic market." Speaking at Microsoft’s event in New Delhi, Nadella emphasised that the countries which achieve the fastest rate of diffusion of AI, not just the creators of the technology, will emerge as global leaders.

Nadella said India has already begun scaled deployments of Microsoft Copilot across sectors including healthcare, information work and consumer services. He met Apollo Hospitals, which is building a “Physician Copilot,” ONGC teams developing upstream-analysis agents, grassroots health innovators at KhushiBaby, and Tech Mahindra, which has created its own multi-agent framework.

He announced that Microsoft will invest $17.5 billion over the next four years in India, following his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The company has committed to skilling 2 crore Indians, with AI capabilities to be embedded into the National Career Service and e-Shram platforms.

Nadella highlighted Microsoft’s expanding cloud footprint, noting that the India South Central cloud region will go live in Hyderabad by 2026. He said all AI data processing for Copilot in India happens locally, with public and private clouds being built with full sovereignty controls, including the Jio-Azure cloud region operated by an Indian partner.

Calling AI deployment "fundamentally different from any IT system," Nadella said the real challenge ahead is designing human–AI interaction that keeps “agency and ambition” at the centre. He reiterated that Microsoft’s AI Foundry is open source, with more than 11,000 models available, and said India is on track to become the world’s largest developer community by 2030 with 5.7 crore developers.

Nadella also welcomed India’s plan to host the AI Impact Summit next year, saying that India’s momentum in AI adoption matches earlier eras of technological change.