‘AI is the new tool, a neural reasoning engine that can give us predictive power’: Satya Nadella to Indian developers | Technology News
“If you take 70 years of computing, one of the dreams has always been: Can we create computers that can understand us versus us understanding computers? I think we may be finally there with the breakthrough of natural language,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to a packed crowd full of developers at an event in Bengaluru on Thursday. The underlying theme of the high-stakes event has been the democratisation of artificial intelligence, making it accessible and transforming lives and society at large.
The Microsoft chief said that developers tend to digitise people, places, and things, but with AI, things are changing. “We put into data models, query it, and essentially all our computing is getting up in the morning and digitising. Now, we have a new tool in our arsenal, think of it as a neural reasoning engine that can find patterns and give us that predictive power,” he said, adding that all of this is what is making us get a sense of the data.
He added that India is second to the US when it comes to the total number of developers on GitHub and it is going to cross that in 2027, making it the place with the maximum number of developers. In terms of Generative AI projects on GitHub by Indian contributors, it is next to the US. “India is a place where the momentum around developers and development is unbelievable,” he says. “It is awesome to see the human capital of the country embrace this new platform and effectively lead this new platform shift.”
(Image: Bijin Jose/The Indian Express)
Nadella went on to describe the key components of AI transformation opportunities for Indian organisations, which include enriching employee experience, reinventing customer engagement, reshaping business processes, and bending the curve on innovation. Microsoft currently has the most comprehensive footprint with over 60 Azure regions and over 800 data centres worldwide. The 56-year-old also spoke about the scope of science breakthroughs with the help of AI. He mentioned new AI models such as Graphormer, M3GNET, MatterGen, MoleR, and GraphPE.
Along with the most comprehensive global AI footprint, Microsoft also has the best AI infrastructure and selection of frontier and open-source models. The CEO also mentioned Phi2, the company’s small language model (SLM), and said that he was bullish about the aggressive roadmap ahead in terms of the use cases of SLMs.
Indic languages and coding
As part of the keynote, Karan MV, senior manager at GitHub India, demonstrated how Indic languages came together with GitHub to offer coding solutions in local languages. Karan demonstrated coding commands in Hinglish, Devanagari, and Telugu scripts. The demo showed the ease of use and innovation that is being built into the platform.
Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia, who opened the Microsoft AI tour, showcased an image of Bengaluru created by Copilot. Chandok said that, at present, Microsoft is the most trusted and innovative partner in AI for everyone. He went on to list three key aspects of this transformation. According to Chandok, learning AI and building your AI, driving capability with Copilot, and driving AI capabilities in one’s respective organisation are critical to harnessing the current AI-powered transformation.
(Image: Bijin Jose/The Indian Express)
Nadella’s optimism for India and its developer community aligns with Microsoft’s commitment to harnessing equitable AI. With over 13 million Indian developers already on GitHub and Microsoft’s recent announcement of plans to equip two million individuals in India with AI skills by 2025 through its ADVANT(I)GE India initiative, the company is poised to accelerate India’s AI transformation and prepare its workforce for the opportunities of tomorrow.
Through partnerships with national and state governments, targeted training for women, and initiatives to raise career awareness in remote and tribal areas, Microsoft aims to ensure that the benefits of AI are widely accessible, ultimately contributing to more evenly distributed economic growth, as envisioned by Nadella.