CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella trumpets cloud partnership with Reliance Industries

In 2019, Microsoft signed a 10-year agreement with Reliance to operate the data centers of the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate with its Azure cloud

CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella trumpets cloud partnership with Reliance Industries

On 24 February 2020, Microsoft Corporation CEO Satya Nadella lauded the company's cloud alliance with Reliance Industries when sharing the stage with its CEO and President Mukesh Ambani. In 2019, Microsoft signed a 10-year contract with Reliance, agreeing to fuel the Azure cloud's data centers.

Nadella said at an event in Mumbai, India, where he started his three-day tour of India, that "we worked with Reliance throughout the stack, everything from what they're going to do with Azure in their own data centers and how they're going to expand it. It's a great example of a business leader and an organization that has platform solutions in very different fields, using technology to create more products."

Mukesh Ambani said, that "we are very eager about the association that is going to have between Microsoft and Reliance Jio, and also, I think that it will be an important alliance when we look at this epoch. I can easily say that India's mobile networks are now outstanding and on a par with anywhere else across the globe. It is much likely that India certainly has a chance to become the world's leading digital culture."

Mukesh Ambani further said, "I do not doubt in my mind that we are going to become among the world's top three economies across the globe. We might debate if it will happen in the next five years or ten years, but it will happen for sure, and we will be among the top three economies worldwide."

Earlier during a keynote speech, Nadella urged Indian business leaders to develop comprehensive technology capabilities in nature. Nadella said that "Indian CEOs need to develop their tech capabilities and to make sure the solutions are inclusive."

Stating that the aggregators have emerged in the last decade, Nadella believed aggregators are not sufficient alone. "We need to make sure digital initiatives contribute to efficiency expanding." Nadella's speech focused heavily on the path forward to technology and was packed with real-life examples of Microsoft's collaboration with Indian firms.

Addressing the CEOs, Nadella said, "As you develop tech muscle, you have also had to recall how you're doing with the digital skill that drives greater inclusive economic development?" He further added that in a multiconstituent realm, "stakeholder capitalism" is essential. Leaders need to be prepared to react as quickly as possible to technological up-gradation, thus developing the tech capability.