Microsoft on Wednesday announced a wide-ranging series of AI partnerships in key sectors in India, a day after it promised to invest 3 billion dollars in the country over the next two yearsto step up competition with rivals Google and Amazon.
The CEO of this technology giant, Satya Nadella, presented agreements with five major organizations that include railways, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and education.
This includes an agreement with India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, under which Microsoft will contribute to the IndiaAI Mission Datasets platform supporting data collection and synthetic data generation.
The company will also train 500,000 people in AI technologies by 2026, and the two partners will set up an AI Center of Excellence called AI Catalysts to boost innovation in rural areas and set up AI labs in 20 national skill training institutes.
RailTel, a state-owned firm, has entered into a five-year partnership with Microsoft to advance the “digital, cloud and AI transformation” of Indian Railways. Apollo Hospitals plans to develop AI “copilots” for healthcare services. Bajaj Finance, the largest non-banking financial company in India, expects annual savings of $18 million by 2026 through the implementation of AI technologies. Edtech startup Upgrad will collaborate with Microsoft to create applications for applying AI in the work environment.
The move comes as Google and Amazon continue to expand their AI offerings and woo Indian firms, while Nvidia makes deals to supply India’s biggest companies with AI chips.
In October, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced partnerships with Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries to build AI infrastructure. The chip designer has also signed contracts with Tata Communications and Yotta Data Services to deploy thousands of its H100 chips.
Google, which has been present in India for over two decades, recently introduced new AI tools for Indian marketers to help them build a digital presence.
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Source: www.itnetwork.rs
