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Informist, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026

 

--Microsoft Smith: To invest $50 bln on AI infra by end of decade 

--CONTEXT: Microsoft President Brad Smith speaks at AI Impact Summit 

--Microsoft Smith: Most part of $50 bln AI infra invest to be in India 
--Microsoft Smith: Need to harness pvt capital, govt funding for AI infra 

 

NEW DELHI – Tech giant Microsoft aims to invest $50 billion by 2030 to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence, Microsoft President Brad Smith said Thursday. India is likely to be among the key destinations for the company's investment, Smith added. 

 

The next big step in AI is extending it to the global south more extensively, Smith said. Under its investment plan, Microsoft aims to set up more data centres and compute infrastructure in the global south, with India, "unsurprisingly", being a key destination, according to Smith.

 

"We need to bring infrastructure to the global south, that means data centres and compute. It also means more connectivity, it means more electricity," Smith said at the AI Impact Summit here. "That not only takes the world's best technology, it is also gonna require an enormous amount of investment."

 

While Microsoft has its investment plans in place, there is a need to harness other sources of investment as well, Smith said. "We need to harness private capital, investments from tech companies, other sources of private capital, government funding," Smith said. "We'll also need governments to generate demand for the use of AI."

 

Besides infrastructure, the next important requirement is skilling and training people in AI usage, Smith said. "Because the key to enabling a country and a population to use a general-purpose technology at scale is to give people across the country access to skills they need to put at work," Smith said.   End

 

Reported by Krity Ambey and Pratiksha

Edited by Vandana Hingorani

 

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