Microsoft Says It Is On Pace To invest $50 billion In 'Global South' AI Push

Tech giant Microsoft on Wednesday, February 18, said it is on pace to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to help expand AI to countries across the 'Global South'.

The announcement was made at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, where top executives from global AI giants meet several world leaders this week.

The 'Global South' refers to developing, emerging or lower-income countries, mostly in the southern hemisphere.

In an X post, Microsoft President Brad Smith penned, "Today in New Delhi, we’re sharing that @Microsoft is on pace to invest USD $50 billion by the end of the decade to help bring AI to countries across the Global South."

“Our five-part program is designed to make AI diffusion real at scale, so communities have what they need to access AI, trust it, and apply it to local priorities, with progress they can track. In India, that includes training 5.6 million people in 2025 and a goal to equip 20 million Indians by 2030, including through Microsoft Elevate for Educators, supporting two million teachers across 200,000+ schools,” he noted. 

Microsoft's latest programme will further build the infrastructure needed for AI diffusion, empowering people through technology and skills for schools and nonprofits, strengthening multilingual and multicultural AI capabilities, enabling local AI innovations that address community needs, and measuring AI diffusion to guide future AI policies and investments.

Also Read: PM Modi, Google CEO Sundar Pichai Discuss AI-Driven Growth In India

This comes after Microsoft unveiled $17.5 billion worth of AI investments in India last year, as the US tech mammoth deepened its bet on one of the world's fastest-growing digital markets. 

Meanwhile, the Indian developer community of 24 million individuals is the second largest national community on GitHub, where developers learn about and collaborate with the world on AI.

The Indian community is also the fastest growing among the top 30 largest economies, with growth at more than 26 percent each year since 2020 and a recent surge of over 36 percent in annual growth as of Q4 2025.

Indian developers rank second globally in open-source contributions, second in GitHub Education users, and second in contributions to public generative AI projects, with readiness to use tools like GitHub Copilot across academic, enterprise, and public interest settings enabling AI diffusion.