Microsoft (MSFT) is making a massive push into India by investing $3 billion to expand its Azure artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services. This is part of the tech giant’s effort to upskill workers in India and familiarize them with AI. Microsoft already has a large workforce in the country with 20,000 people employed.
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Microsoft’s plan includes training 10 million people in India to work with AI by 2030. This builds on the company’s work last year, including upskilling 2.4 million people globally into AI expertise. Microsoft continues to bet big on AI with massive investments and wants to show investors profits soon.
Microsoft’s constant investments in AI haven’t resulted in massive gains for MSFT investors. The company’s stock only increased 15.04% in the last 52 weeks. That’s somewhat disappointing compared to AI rival Nvidia’s (NVDA) 185.99% gain over the prior year.
Microsoft’s Interest in India is Warranted
India is home to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who took over the company from former CEO Steve Ballmer in 2014. Nadella has highlighted the potential India offers with its AI potential. He notes that the country is only second behind the U.S. in GitHub Copilot contribution. The MSFT CEO projects India will be the top contributor to the AI coding tool by 2028.
Investing directly in India may help Microsoft avoid political debates. There’s been a recent argument against the liberal use of H-1B visas to bring in workers from the country and what this means for U.S. jobs. If Microsoft invests in AI in India, it may help the company sidestep these arguments as it won’t need to bring workers to the U.S.
Is MSFT Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, the analysts’ consensus rating for Microsoft is Strong Buy based on 27 Buy and two Hold ratings over the last three months. With that comes an average price target of $503.61, a high of $550, and a low of $425. This represents a potential 17.71% upside for MSFT shares.
