India, with a “very buoyant” market and a growth rate that is “the best in the world”, is poised to gain tremendously from the era of artificial intelligence-led growth, according to Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation.
Mumbai, Feb 7 (IANS) As India embarks on its Artificial Intelligence (AI) journey, Microsoft will help the country become self-reliant by fostering a skilled AI workforce and empowering every sector and industry to transform with AI, the company’s Chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella, said on Wednesday.
India, with a “very buoyant” market and a growth rate that is “the best in the world”, is poised to gain tremendously from the era of artificial intelligence-led growth, according to Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation. Emphasizing the role of artificial intelligence in driving increased productivity, the Hyderabad-born executive said it gives him “tremendous optimism” that it (AI) will further accelerate India’s growth as the country races towards its goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047.
“At the end of the day, what's the difference between being a developed country and a developing country? It’s just the rate of growth over long periods of time,” 56-year-old Nadella told ET in an interview last week.
He cited the example of digital public goods, which when “scaffolded or daisy-chained with a large language model” can create several innovative solutions for various sectors of the economy.
He also noted that using AI, India can create solutions that not only deliver societal benefit and drive productivity for the country but will also be “very relevant for the rest of the world”.
“India’s unique ability to use this technology to create solutions for its own structural challenges is (also) going to be a competitive advantage,” said the Microsoft CEO, whose company posted revenues of $211 billion in 2023. Microsoft's market value crossed the $3-trillion mark earlier this year as it overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable firm.
Nadella, who has led the iconic company for a decade, is being termed as the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) of technology CEOs for having dramatically turned around Microsoft’s fortunes — firstly, with bold initiatives on mobile and cloud computing and now with a humongous bet on generative AI.
Responding to concerns of AI triggering large-scale job losses, Nadella pointed out that “what may be a debit on one side is a credit on the other side… that is the dynamism of the labour market”, adding that the learning curve has come down, not gone steeper, thanks to AI, which also helps in reskilling.
In addition, macroeconomic and geopolitical concerns have continued to dent technology spending for over two years now. As such, while “there is real economic growth in countries like India, there's also high inflation around the world”.
The Microsoft CEO was of the view that after a long period of low interest rates, there is now a different economic context, but it is still unclear whether the US economy will have a soft landing. “There's no going back to the last 15 years… but there's a real dialogue in every business, in every country — about using resources well, and most productively,” he said.
By Surabhi Agarwal & Sruthijith KK
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/epaper/delhicapital/2024/feb/12/et-front/ai-to-speed-up-indias-growth-on-road-to-2047/articleshow/107608012.cms
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