The next generation of AI is changing how and what developers build everywhere, including in India, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella said on Thursday.

Highlighting the pivotal role of India’s developer community during the Microsoft AI Tour in Bengaluru, Nadella addressed 1,100 developers and technology leaders in the city.

“It’s fantastic to see how India’s developer community is applying our technology and tools to build the future for India and the world,” he said, as the company pioneered AI skilling investments for 2 million people by 2025 in the country.

Nadella highlighted that 10 per cent of India’s GDP growth will be governed by 

Notably, India has the second-highest number of generative AI projects on GitHub after the United States.

Microsoft India President Puneet Chadok, during his address to welcome Nadella, said every sixth developer in AI is coming from India. 

Outlining his vision on AI transformation imperatives in healthcare and education, Nadella said the momentum around developers and development in India is “unbelievable.”

The Indian-American business executive also announced the expansion of the ‘code without barriers’ initiative to India, aiding 75,000 women developers by 2024.

During the event, Indian generative AI startup Sarvam AI announced that it is working with Microsoft to make its Indic voice large language model (LLM) available on Azure.

India is no longer incredible, but also credible when it comes to productive capacity of Generative AI, Chandok shared, highlighting the quantum of investments over the past 10 years which stands at $7.7 billion.

Stating that a lot of innovation was happening around Copilot, the Microsoft chief said India is a place where the momentum around developers and development is unbelievable." 

The early adopters of the technology include Air India, TCS and Swiggy, Nadella shared, adding that opportunities lie in changing the employee experience, as well as for customer engagement and other such business functions