Satya Nadella, the Indian born CEO of Microsoft, was on a three day visit to India’s startup hub, Bengaluru to pitch Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, as it intends to make strides in the Indian startup scenarios. If reports are to be believed, more than 2,000 startups host their services on Microsoft platform and use their tools.
While on the visit, he shared his thoughts on AI, startup scenario in India and Microsoft’s new found alliance with Flipkart where it intends to leverage its advanced cloud technologies to Flipkart.
Talking about Artificial Intelligence, he said that cloud and AI go together. “The fact that you have the power of the Internet and infrastructure to read large amounts of data is what powers artificial intelligence”, he said during an event. He believes that India is growing substantially on leveraging technologies powered by AI.
Following up on Bill Gates’ call for levying taxes on the use of AI, Nadella reportedly commented that AI without reskilling people may have impact on jobs. He was also quick to add that Microsoft at many instances have used the power of Artificial Intelligence to deliver government services such as in the states of Punjab and Andhra Pradesh.
He was also heard adding a note on the power of Cortana where he said that Natural language processing, powered through Microsoft Azure Cloud — is the ultimate promise of Cortana.
Not just the technologies like AI, he added a note about the potential use that Augmented Reality has in store. Nadella spoke about Microsoft HoloLens, the first self-contained, holographic computer that promises limitless potential in the field of AR and VR. HoloLens allows you to engage with your digital content and interact with holograms in the world around you.
Sounding hopeful about the Indian startup scenario, he said that entrepreneurs have a lot of options in the technology field to explore from. He reportedly reaffirmed Microsoft’s tools and technology platforms to those venturing out in the startup space.
The most exciting part of his visit came in the form of the strategic partnership between Flipkart and Microsoft, where the ecommerce giant would be seen adopting Microsoft Azure and adding advanced cloud technologies & analytics to existing data centres. In addition to that Flipkart intends to leverage Microsoft’s AI and machine learning capabilities such as through Cortana Intelligence Suite and Power BI.
The preliminary aim of this partnership is in delivering personalized experience to the customers. “Combining Microsoft’s cloud platform and AI capabilities with Flipkart’s existing services and data assets, will enable Flipkart to accelerate its digital transformation in e-commerce and deliver new customer experiences”, Nadella was quoted as saying during his visit.
