Microsoft Launches Fourth India Cloud Region
Microsoft has introduced its fourth cloud region in India, located in Hyderabad, as it broadens its cloud and AI infrastructure presence following its previously declared $20.5-billion investment in the nation, with India poised for significant growth in data center capability to facilitate the upcoming phase of AI adoption.
The new India South Central cloud area brings Microsoft's cloud regions in India to four, joining Pune, Chennai, and Mumbai, resulting in what Microsoft India and South Asia President Puneet Chandok referred to as the largest hyperscale cloud presence in India.
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The launch occurs as over $100 billion in private funds is dedicated to developing India's data centers, while the government has sanctioned $1.3 billion for the IndiaAI Mission, based on data shared by Chandok.
“20% of the world's data is being generated by India, but only 3% of the world's data center capacity sits in our country,” Chandok said. “Between these two numbers sits the largest opportunity of the decade for India.”
Chandok stated that India presently possesses approximately 2 GW of data center capacity, which he anticipates will increase to 12-14 GW by 2035. He stated that increasing capacity will be essential as businesses and governments transition from testing AI to implementing it on a large scale.
“Demand is not the problem.” "We must ensure the supply is adequate," Chandok states, insisting that resilient and reliable infrastructure is essential for customers and government services to effectively implement AI within the nation.
Microsoft's launch in Hyderabad is a component of its previously declared $20.5-billion investment pledge in India. In December 2025, the company revealed a further $17.5 billion investment, building on a previous $3 billion pledge, with this new funding aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure, training, and operations.
Chandok stated that the infrastructure development should be seen not just as an extension of data centers but as the physical base for India’s shift from digital public infrastructure to “AI public infrastructure.”
“The digital scale that we are building requires a physical scale, and that is the national imperative for all of us,” he says.
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Making a comparison to India’s Green Revolution, Chandok stated that AI models acted as the “new seed,” whereas computing infrastructure and skill development were akin to the irrigation canals that enabled the technology to provide substantial economic benefits. He highlighted the shared compute resources of the IndiaAI Mission, which encompass 45,000 GPUs, over 14,000 datasets, and more than 300 models, as instances of India creating a unified AI infrastructure layer.
India is experiencing swift enterprise uptake of AI. Chandok references Microsoft’s Work Trend Index data, showing that 92 percent of knowledge workers in India utilize AI, in contrast to 75 percent worldwide, and 40 percent of Indian businesses are expanding their AI implementations.
Chandok mentioned that the essence of AI is evolving, as models become more affordable and are transitioning from merely responding to inquiries to executing actions through AI agents.
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Microsoft has experienced a fifteen times rise in agent utilization in Microsoft 365, he noted, while approximately half of the tasks occurring in Copilot entail reasoning and decision-making.
Microsoft aims to equip 20 million Indians with AI skills by 2030, which includes two million educators. Chandok mentioned that over 10 million individuals in India have been trained by Microsoft.