Microsoft has announced the launch of its new Hyderabad datacenter region, called India South Central, during the AI Infrastructure Summit. This facility will serve as a key operational hub for Asia and the Global South. The launch marks a significant step in Microsoft’s $20.5 billion investment strategy in India, aimed at enhancing its capabilities for enterprise cloud and AI workloads.
Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia, highlighted in his keynote that all of Microsoft’s cloud regions in India are now equipped with AI-capable hardware. Additionally, these regions feature specialized high-efficiency thermal cooling systems to support advanced technological operations.
Expanding datacenter infrastructure across India could unlock a broader economic flywheel, potentially driving between $140 billion and $200 billion in overall economic output nationwide through 2030, according to research estimates from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). As a consortium partner in the India-Southeast Asia undersea cable project, Microsoft is supporting the creation of a 3,600-kilometer subsea route linking India directly with Singapore and Malaysia. The India South Central facility operates on a three-zone architecture built for sustained infrastructure scaling. It launches with a wide array of Azure enterprise tools, with plans to roll out Microsoft’s full portfolio of AI solutions, including Microsoft Foundry, over the coming months. To bolster the physical data pipelines required for such computing loads, Microsoft is also backing major regional connectivity initiatives. First is I-2SEA Submarine Cable. The launch of the Hyderabad region also deepens Microsoft’s Sovereign Public Cloud capabilities, giving domestic institutions greater flexibility to keep sensitive digital workloads near local users, data repositories and operations.
The intercontinental subsea cable system is slated to enter commercial service in 2029, and Microsoft will train 10 million Indians in AI. Secondly, the subsea network will feature dual landing hubs in India, situated at South Chennai and Machilipatnam, improving fault tolerance, network resilience, and high-bandwidth transmission capacity.