Ahead of the phased roll-out of the Digital Data Protection Framework over the next 18 months, Microsoft head Satya Nadella doubled down on his messaging on sovereignty, localised data processing by Copilot, data resilience, and the company’s focus on Asia through its investment mandate.
During his keynote at the Microsoft Leadership Conclave on Wednesday, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said, “...not only are we building infrastructure, we are also building it with real sovereignty controls. Everyone wants to make sure that they can control both the data and applications plane here and so we are building multiple options.”
He added that, in addition to public cloud with sovereignty options, Microsoft has also partnered with multiple companies to offer private cloud including the likes of TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Sonata Software and others.
“And, of course, we have the Jio-Azure region which is operated by an Indian partner in this case. We are also excited that Copilot now has all its data processing happening in India, so it is no longer about any data going outside the country,” said Nadella.
Multiple Indian companies have announced their sovereign cloud ambitions this year, including L&T, TCS and Airtel.
According to a recent forecast by technology insights company Gartner, IT spending in India is expected to reach $173.6 billion in 2026, propelled by data center systems segment increasing at a growth rate of 20.5 percent in 2026, despite moderating from 29.2 percent growth in 2025.
“India has one of the largest consumer bases for AI services globally, attracting international investment in local infrastructure to support this expanding user base. Evolving data privacy and sovereign cloud requirements are expected to drive growth in this segment through 2026,” said Naresh Singh, senior director analyst at Gartner in the report.
Also Read: Microsoft will provide AI skilling opportunities to 2 million Indians by 2025: Satya Nadella
In an announcement following his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Microsoft chief also said the company will deploy $17.5 billion in India over the next four years—the largest investment in Asia—in addition to its commitment of investing $3 billion across cloud and AI infrastructure and skilling made in January this year.
The investment will be mainly directed towards building sovereign-ready hyperscale infrastructure for AI adoption. This includes Microsoft’s India South Central cloud region based in Hyderabad, which is expected to be operational by mid-2026. This marks Microsoft’s largest hyperscale region in India. The company will also continue to expand its operational data centres in Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad.
In addition, Microsoft has committed to skilling 20 million Indians with AI capabilities by 2030. It also announced an integration with the government’s e-Shram portal to register nearly 400 million workers in the informal sectors and the National Career Services Portal for AI-based services such as resume building, helping workers register on the portal using AI, among other features.
First Published: Dec 10, 2025, 18:18
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