“AI itself is in its early stages right now, so more sophisticated and productive utilize cases will mature over time. However, India plays a key role in the development of AI globally and the development of Indian AI platforms will be key to the growth of this market,” Chandok said.
The company’s local staff has already tested how it works with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (Meity) AI dataset platform, Bhashini, where it is able to handle generative AI queries and results in 20 Indian languages. Among its clients, Microsoft has partnered with companies such as Air India, Indigo, Zomato, Larsen & Toubro, Aditya Birla Capital and more, which have created AI assistants that are already operational – a trend that Chandok believes will only raise. “We have seen a 10x growth in Microsoft Copilot services in India in the last six months,” the executive said.
The Redmond, Washington-headquartered Substantial Tech has many vigorous partnerships with almost all of India’s leading IT services companies – for example, in October, the company strengthened its artificial intelligence partnership with Tata Consultancy Services to deploy Azure OpenAI in various areas of artificial intelligence utilize cases. In September, it signed a similar partnership with Infosys. Each focuses on the emerging Copilot solution, a generative AI solution for both enterprises and consumers. In this regard, India is leading the company’s growth, Chandok said.
“Myntra has created a fashion assistant to lend a hand customers buy things much easier. Zomato has created an AI assistant that gives you more precise recommendations. Axis Bank, one of the fastest growing users of the Copilot system, is already seeing a 30% improvement in productivity,” he said.
Over time, Microsoft’s business in India has continued to grow. As of FY23, the company’s latest available cash is $2.26 billion, up 39% year-over-year. The services segment, which includes Azure cloud and OpenAI, accounted for 70%, or $1.58 billion, of revenue. In terms of cloud operations, market data estimates that Azure accounts for just over 20% of India’s hyperscaler cloud providers.
Currently, analysts expect Microsoft to grow at an even faster pace in fiscal year 2024. “Generative AI-powered solutions have helped Microsoft further capitalize on the need to adopt AI-enabled platforms – and as a result, its market share and revenues are likely to have increased. With an raise in customer numbers, Microsoft’s revenue share from India may also raise as the company’s growth rate crosses FY23 levels,” said a senior industry analyst at a Gurgaon-based market research firm. Minton condition of anonymity.
Increasing India’s share of revenue would also be a key part of the company’s overall program, although Chandok confirmed that India’s importance is also strategic, not just financial. As of FY23, India accounted for just over 1% of Microsoft’s $211 billion in annual revenue. The company’s fiscal year runs from July to June.
Chandok said that as its business grows, the software company is seeing an raise in the popularity of Copilot’s off-the-shelf solutions, OpenAI-based utilize cases tailored to sector needs, and the utilize of AI infrastructure in startups. This, in turn, translates into business development and revenues. “In India, 13.2 million developers utilize Github Copilot, the second largest in the world, and productivity has increased by 55%,” he noted.
As part of a strategic goal, Microsoft is working with governments and government agencies to train officials in the utilize of generative AI to raise productivity and enable AI skills. “There are a lot of conversations going on with state governments to address issues around law and order and citizen services utilize cases,” Chandok said.
Interestingly, the nature of projects between government departments and private sector management is surprisingly similar. “The three questions I get most often are: explain the technology beyond AI, what it can do for us and how we can work with it. The needs are the same, only the nature of implementation differs,” he added.
Massive utilize of AI would also require back-end computing power, Chandok said, which is why the tech giant is expanding its data centers in India.
“We are constantly building, so we are building data centers – Hyderabad is coming. This will require even greater investment in infrastructure and building the capacity we need. India is one of the fastest growing markets and we are obviously keen to bring the best of Microsoft to India,” he said. However, Chandok did not provide estimates or investment values for expanding its data centers in the country.
Chandok further added that huge language models are taken and adapted to the Indian context by training or using more data specific to Indian contextual languages, which in turn will ensure that they are cost-effective for Indian customers and available for building a set of services on top. “All technologies are global and the same applies to artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence. The context and nature in which technology evolution occurs will vary. As such, we are also building diminutive AI models that are well-suited to leverage AI capabilities at the edges,” he further added.
The development of edge AI capabilities is growing. Outside of Microsoft, Meta presented Llama-3 with only 8 billion data parameters in its training. For context, today’s huge AI models typically have over 200 billion parameters and can reach 2-3 trillion parameters in size. Others, such as Salesforce, have also built goal-oriented models that can target specific utilize cases – this is the office communication tool Slack.
“Over time, this development is likely to deepen – our goal is to be present in all circles of innovation,” Chandok said.
Posted: May 5, 2024, 7:35 pm EST