During a meeting with the Indonesian president on Tuesday, Microsoft’s CEO promised to invest $1.7 billion in cloud computing and AI to support the development of the AI infrastructure in the archipelago.
Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, disclosed this during a meeting with President Joko Widodo, more popularly known as Jokowi, at Jakarta’s presidential palace before delivering a keynote speech about AI in the Indonesian capital.
Nadella is beginning a tour of Southeast Asian nations to promote the generative AI technology of the American company, and his first stop is Jakarta. Later this week, he will travel to Thailand and Malaysia.
Microsoft, which operates one of the biggest cloud computing businesses in the world, has advanced artificial intelligence significantly by integrating a chatbot with its search engine, Bing.
As it seeks to establish itself as a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence technology to increase workplace productivity, its profits increased by 20% during the January–March quarter, according to its results report released on Thursday.
“This new generation of AI is reshaping how people live and work everywhere, including in Indonesia,” said Nadella, in Jakarta on the first stop of a tour of Southeast Asia.
“The investments we are announcing today — spanning digital infrastructure, skilling, and support for developers — will help Indonesia thrive in this new era,” he said.
Newsng gathered that after China and India, Indonesia has the third-largest developer community in the Asia-Pacific area.
GitHub is a Microsoft-owned site that is used by more than 3.1 million developers in Indonesia for software development, innovation, and collaboration.
By 2026, it is expected to rank among the top five developer communities worldwide on GitHub.
We earlier reported that Microsoft announced that it will invest $1.5 billion in G42, an artificial intelligence company based in the United Arab Emirates.