Earlier today, Microsoft announced that it will build a fourth data center in India. India is one of the fastest-growing markets in the digital consumer space. AnantĀ Maheshwari, head of Microsoft India, said the company is making long-term investments in India. However, he declined to confirm local media reports that the latest data center construction will cost $2 billion.
Maheshwari explained: “Public cloud data centers are not a one-time investment, we continue to invest in them. Over the past two years, we have doubled the capacity of our three existing data centers in India.”
According to market research firm IDC, the overall public cloud services market in India may hit $10.8 billion by 2025. The Indian government has been urging foreign tech companies to store more data locally. This move is an attempt by the country to impose stricter regulations on big tech companies.
Maheshwari said that even during the pandemic, Microsoft’s workforce in India has been growing, currently at 18,000. In the future, Microsoft will continue to increase the number of employees in India. Maheshwari confirmed: “Microsoft has served more than 340,000 companies in India”. The new data center is located in the southern Indian state of Telangana.
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Maheshwari said Microsoft’s business model, which relies on partners building additional services on its cloud platform Azure, has helped it build about $10 billion worth of new businesses over the past five years. However, Microsoft’s main rivals are also joining the race in India. Amazon announced in late 2020 that it would spend $2.8 billion to build a second data center in India, while Adani Group last year announced plans to build six data center campuses across India.
Microsoft’s new Azure datacenter launched in China
The new Azure data center in China is now official and customers can access it without restrictions. Microsoft data shows that it’s Smart Cloud consists of more than 200 physical data centers in more than 34 markets around the world. These centers serve more than 1 billion customers and 20 million companies worldwide.
Microsoft saidĀ this is the fifth Azure data center region of Microsoft Smart Cloud in the Chinese market. The center is operated by its partner, 21Vianet.Ā According to reports, Microsoft Azure, operated by 21Vianet, was released in 2012.Ā In March 2014, Microsoft’s intelligent cloud Azure opened two data center regions in China. It is theĀ first international public cloud to go commercial in China. Since then, Microsoft Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform operated by 21Vianet have also landed in the Chinese market in 2014, 2019, and 2020 respectively.
