At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Microsoft has announced that the company is on track to invest $50 billion by the end of this decade to expand AI infrastructure and access across countries in the Global South. The company cited findings from its latest AI Diffusion Report and said AI adoption in developed economies is currently about twice as high as in developing regions, a gap that risks deepening existing economic inequalities if left unaddressed.
The planned investment will be divided into five broad pillars: expanding AI-ready infrastructure, scaling digital skills, strengthening multilingual AI capabilities, supporting local innovation, and improving AI adoption metrics.
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Over the last fiscal year, Microsoft stated that it invested more than $8 billion in data center infrastructure serving the Global South, which includes India, Mexico, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Along with compute capacity, the company is pursuing internet connectivity initiatives, with the goal of reaching 250 million people in underserved areas. It claims to have already connected over 117 million people in Africa through local partnerships.
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On the skilling front, Microsoft highlighted its broader training push through its Elevate program, which aims to provide millions with AI capabilities. In India, the company intends to support large-scale teacher training and institutional capacity building to aid in the integration of AI tools into classrooms and workforce development programs.
Addressing language barriers, Microsoft announced new investments in multilingual AI development, such as datasets, evaluation tools, and benchmarks for under-represented languages. The goal is to ensure that AI systems function reliably beyond English-speaking markets.
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The company also announced new initiatives in agriculture and food security in Africa, where AI tools will be used to generate data-driven insights for policymakers and farmers.