Microsoft to Invest $3 Bln to Expand AI, Cloud Capacity in India

26 March 2021, Bavaria, Munich: The Microsoft logo hangs on the facade of an office building in Parkstadt Schwabing in the north of the Bavarian capital. (dpa)
26 March 2021, Bavaria, Munich: The Microsoft logo hangs on the facade of an office building in Parkstadt Schwabing in the north of the Bavarian capital. (dpa)
TT

Microsoft to Invest $3 Bln to Expand AI, Cloud Capacity in India

26 March 2021, Bavaria, Munich: The Microsoft logo hangs on the facade of an office building in Parkstadt Schwabing in the north of the Bavarian capital. (dpa)
26 March 2021, Bavaria, Munich: The Microsoft logo hangs on the facade of an office building in Parkstadt Schwabing in the north of the Bavarian capital. (dpa)

Microsoft will invest about $3 billion to expand capacity for artificial intelligence and its Azure cloud-computing services in India, CEO Satya Nadella said on Tuesday.

The tech giant is the latest to pledge investment in India, a country seen as a key growth market for US technology companies thanks to its population of more than 1.4 billion people and low-cost internet access.

Executives ranging from Nvidia chief Jensen Huang to Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun have visited India in recent months.

The $3 billion investment in India would be the "single largest expansion" done in the country, Nadella said at a conference in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru.

Microsoft will also train 10 million people in AI in India by 2030, Nadella said.

When Nadella visited India early last year, he announced the company will provide 2 million people in the country with AI skilling opportunities by 2025, focused on training individuals in smaller cities as well as rural areas.

Nadella met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, and the pair discussed "tech, innovation and AI" and "Microsoft's ambitious expansion and investment plans in India."

Microsoft has been pouring billions of dollars into expanding capacity across the globe to boost AI infrastructure and its data-center network.

The company last week unveiled plans to invest about $80 billion in fiscal 2025.

The investment, more than half of which will be in the United States, will focus on developing data centers to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications.



US Self-driving Car Companies Seek Boost under Trump

A Ford Fusion hybrid, Level 4 autonomous vehicle, used by Ford Motor and Domino's Pizza to test a self-driving pizza delivery car in Michigan, is displayed during Press Days of the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan, US, January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo
A Ford Fusion hybrid, Level 4 autonomous vehicle, used by Ford Motor and Domino's Pizza to test a self-driving pizza delivery car in Michigan, is displayed during Press Days of the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan, US, January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo
TT

US Self-driving Car Companies Seek Boost under Trump

A Ford Fusion hybrid, Level 4 autonomous vehicle, used by Ford Motor and Domino's Pizza to test a self-driving pizza delivery car in Michigan, is displayed during Press Days of the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan, US, January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo
A Ford Fusion hybrid, Level 4 autonomous vehicle, used by Ford Motor and Domino's Pizza to test a self-driving pizza delivery car in Michigan, is displayed during Press Days of the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan, US, January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo

A group representing self-driving car companies on Tuesday called on the US government to do more to speed the deployment of autonomous vehicles and remove barriers to adoption.

"The federal government is the one that needs to lead when it comes to vehicle design, construction and performance, and we just have not seen enough action out of the federal government in recent years," Jeff Farrah, who heads the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, said in an interview.

The group includes Volkswagen Ford, Alphabet's Waymo, Amazon.com's Zoox, Uber and others, Reuters reported.

The group released a policy framework calling on the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) to "assert its responsibility over the design, construction, and performance of autonomous vehicles and increase its efforts in key areas."

The group added that "federal inaction has created regulatory uncertainty" and warned China is determined to take the United States lead on autonomous vehicle technology.

"We want to make sure there is a clear pathway to getting these next-generation vehicles on the road," said Farrah.

"We have been frustrated by the lack of progress."

In December 2023, the group and others called on the USDOT to do more.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview on Monday the government was ensuring that self-driving cars would be much better than human drivers.

"I think being very rigorous in these early stages is helping these technologies start to meet their potential to save lives," Buttigieg said, adding the oversight would boost public acceptance.

The industry faces scrutiny after a pedestrian was seriously injured in October 2023 by a General Motors Cruise vehicle. The USDOT has opened investigations into self-driving vehicles operated by Cruise, Waymo and Zoox.

The autonomous vehicle group wants Congress to clarify human controls are unnecessary in automated vehicles meeting performance standards and allow companies to disable a self-driving vehicles' manual controls. It also called for creating a national AV safety data repository that would be available to state transportation agencies.

Last month, the USDOT proposed streamlining reviews of petitions to deploy self-driving vehicles without human controls like steering wheels or brake pedals.

Efforts in Congress to make it easier to deploy robotaxis on US roads without human controls have been stymied for years but may be boosted when President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Reuters and other outlets have reported Trump wants to ease deployment barriers for self-driving vehicles. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a close adviser to Trump, said in October the automaker would roll out driverless ride-hailing services in 2025.