South Korean media: Tech giants enter India, Amazon and Microsoft announce a $50 billion investment!
On January 8, South Korean media "Chosun Ilbo" published an article stating that large U.S. technology companies have announced a series of major investments in India to expand their artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Although India lags behind the United States and China in the AI development race, its vast territory, abundant human resources, and huge market growth potential are attracting attention from all sides.
Amazon and Microsoft have announced investments in India's cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure, with a total investment exceeding $50 billion.
Amazon recently announced that it will invest an additional $3.5 billion by 2030 in India, bringing its total investment in the country to $4 billion. This investment will be used in multiple areas, including online retail, AI digitalization, logistics development, and support for small and medium-sized enterprises' exports. Amazon is currently competing with Walmart's Flipkart and local emerging companies in India.
Microsoft also announced that it will invest $1.75 billion over the next four years to strengthen India's AI and cloud computing infrastructure. This is Microsoft's largest investment in Asia. The company plans to use this funding to expand data center capacity, cultivate local talent, and build self-developed technological capabilities. Previously, Microsoft had announced a $300 million investment in India and has been expanding its cloud computing business in the country.
Market research firm Counterpoint Research said: "Such a scale of capital investment will give Microsoft a first-mover advantage in GPU-centric data centers, making Azure the preferred platform for AI workloads in India, and aligning closely with the Indian government's AI public infrastructure policy."
Intel announced that it will use the rapid growth in demand for personal computers and the popularity of artificial intelligence to produce semiconductors in India.
India has the world's largest population, about 1.4 billion. The number of internet and smartphone users in India is continuously increasing, and it is expected to become one of the largest online retail and cloud computing markets in the world in the coming decades. Therefore, large U.S. technology companies are viewing India as a key market.
Counterpoint Research said, "India has a vast digital user base, and the demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence is growing rapidly. It also has a skilled IT talent ecosystem capable of building and utilizing artificial intelligence on a large scale. Therefore, it is not just a user market but also an important engineering and deployment center."
Currently, India lags behind the United States and China in the development of AI models, lacking indigenous companies developing AI infrastructure. However, India is striving to leverage its information technology advantages to develop and deploy AI applications. This may also bring great opportunities for large technology companies.
Stanford University included India in the top four in its Global and National AI Vitality Index, along with the United States, China, and the United Kingdom. On the developer community GitHub, India ranks first, accounting for 24% of the global project total.
In terms of data center construction, India is considered to have multiple advantages. Existing markets in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, Australia, China, and Singapore, are already mature. Singapore faces a shortage of land, making it difficult to build new large data centers. In contrast, India has sufficient land for building large data centers. Additionally, India's electricity costs are lower than those in European data center hubs. Moreover, considering the rapid development of renewable energy, India's economic feasibility is highly attractive.
Market research firm IDC said, "India is one of the main markets in the Asia-Pacific region with the fastest growth in AI spending. Although a lack of sufficient computing infrastructure needed to run AI models is a key gap, it also represents a huge opportunity."
Original: toutiao.com/article/1853735473986889/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author.