Microsoft’s $50 bn AI play makes India Global South focus

New Delhi: Microsoft on Wednesday said it is on track to invest USD 50 billion by the end of the decade to expand access to artificial intelligence across the Global South, warning that AI adoption in the Global North is already twice as high and the gap is widening.

Announcing the plan at the India AI Impact Summit, vice chair and president Brad Smith and vice president and chief responsible AI officer Natasha Crampton said urgent action is needed to prevent AI from deepening global economic inequality.

According to Microsoft’s latest AI Diffusion Report, uneven adoption of AI could limit economic growth and opportunity in developing regions. The USD 50-billion commitment will be deployed through a five-part programme focused on infrastructure, skilling, multilingual AI, local innovation, and measurement of AI adoption.

Microsoft said it invested over USD 8 billion in datacentre infrastructure serving the Global South in its last fiscal year, including in India, Mexico, Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. In India, after training 5.6 million people in 2025, Microsoft now aims to equip 20 million people with AI skills by 2030. At the summit, Microsoft announced Elevate for Educators in India, targeting two million teachers across 200,000 institutions, expanding AI access to eight million students.

Addressing language barriers, Microsoft said it is expanding investments in multilingual and multicultural AI, advancing community-centred AI evaluation with Indian institutions.