Microsoft's $1.7B AI Investment

Microsoft's chief executive officer pledged a $1.7 billion investment in artificial intelligence and cloud computing to help develop Indonesia's AI infrastructure after a meeting with the archipelago's president.

Indonesia is Southeast Asia's biggest economy and has a population of around 280 million across its sprawling archipelago, with a growing demand for data centers and AI tech in the region.

"The thing I am really excited to announce today is the expanded announcement of data center investment, so $1.7 billion to bring the latest and greatest AI infrastructure to Indonesia," Nadella told a crowd, adding data centers would be built in Indonesia soon.

"We are going to lead this wave in terms of the next generation of AI infrastructure that's needed," he said.

"Our mission ultimately is to empower every person and every organization in Indonesia to take advantage of this next big AI wave."

He said the tech giant would provide AI training for hundreds of thousands of Indonesians.

"I'm very pleased to announce that we at Microsoft are going to train 2.5 million people by 2025 across the ASEAN region. In fact 840,000 right here in Indonesia alone," he said.

Satya Nadella held talks with President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, at Jakarta's presidential palace before delivering a keynote speech about AI in the Indonesian capital.

Microsoft said in a statement the investment would be over four years.

A Microsoft statement later confirmed it was the company's biggest investment in the country.

Microsoft has been hugely rewarded by investors since it aggressively pushed into rolling out generative AI, starting with its $13 billion partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in 2023.

Nadella said last week sales in the January-to-March period rose by 17 percent from a year earlier to $61.9 billion, with net profit up 20 percent to $21.9 billion.