Indian Public Goods Infra Has Global Applicability: Microsoft Chairman

While addressing the Microsoft Future Ready Technology Summit in Bengaluru on Thursday (January 5), Microsoft’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Satya Nadella said that the Indian digital public goods infrastructure has global applicability. 

“What’s happening in India with digital public goods is phenomenal. It’s just unbelievable for me to see India stack mature and use cases between the technology and the policy. There’s nothing like that I see anywhere else in the world… It has 100% global applicability,” said Nadella. 

Calling what was happening with the digital public goods in the country as phenomenal, Nadella noted that India Stack was ‘perhaps the greatest contribution’ that the country could make to the world.

India Stack refers to a slew of open APIs and digital public products such as Aadhaar, UPI, account aggregator framework, and ONDC, among others.

He noted that India was the second-largest base for the company’s software development platform GitHub. Lauding the centre’s ambitious AI translation initiative BHASHINI, Nadella said that the project was one of the ‘most mic-drop moments’ of his trip.

“I think India’s leadership of the G20 is obviously a great moment for that. And we at Microsoft want to be as helpful as possible in amplifying what is essentially the output of India,” the Microsoft chairman added. 

Nadella landed in India on January 3 for this four-day visit to the country. On Thursday, he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed a gamut of issues with him. 

“Thank you @narendramodi for an insightful meeting. It’s inspiring to see the government’s deep focus on sustainable and inclusive economic growth led by digital transformation and we’re looking forward to helping India realise the Digital India vision and be a light for the world,” Nadella tweeted after his meeting with PM Modi. 

A day before, Nadella met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and discussed several issues, including governance and cybersecurity. 

Hyderabad-born Nadella’s visit to India comes close on the heels of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s visit to the country. 

While there has been no clarity on what is behind the visit, the common focus of both visits has been artificial intelligence and a slew of India-specific announcements. 

Both the top executives were seen publicly lauding India’s G20 presidency and signing MoUs with the government to scale various products. Besides, India continues to be one of the biggest consumer markets for both big tech majors, and the visit to India could be seen as reinforcing the companies’ commitment to the country. 

Meanwhile, the big tech industry continues to be mired in regulatory scrutiny. The recent months have seen the Indian government introduce a slew of norms such as new IT amendments and the draft Telecommunication Bill, 2022, which have direct implications on these players. 

Despite the government’s bid to tighten screws around the space, it remains to be seen how this space evolves.