Microsoft announced the general availability of its India South Central cloud region in Hyderabad, Telangana. This gives customers the choice to run eligible Microsoft Cloud services and workloads from Hyderabad, with the security, reliability and support of a fully operational Microsoft region. India South Central strengthens the country’s foundation for scalable and sovereign-ready AI.
Built for the demands of the AI era, it gives organizations more local choice to modernize critical systems, build new digital services, and turn AI ambition into measurable business impact, faster decisions, stronger customer outcomes and new ways of working with enterprise-grade security, compliance and governance, as services become available in the region over time. The new datacenter region comprises three Availability Zones built with a resilient design aligned to India’s regulatory and seismic-zone requirements to support mission critical workloads at scale.
“Whether it is a Frontier Firm already running AI at scale or an enterprise taking its first steps, the question we hear most often is: how do we move faster from experimenting with AI to creating durable business value with AI? That requires trusted infrastructure close to where data lives, teams work and decisions are made. The Microsoft India South Central datacenter region is a critical part of that foundation, backed by Microsoft’s $20.5 billion investment commitment to India’s cloud and AI future. Making India AI-first is about bringing together the scale to support growth, the skills to unlock value, the sovereignty organizations expect, and the security they depend on. We are not investing in infrastructure to keep up with demand. We are investing in India’s ability to set the pace for the world.”, said Puneet Chandok, President, Microsoft India and South Asia.
With India South Central, Microsoft now operates four cloud regions in India – Central India in Pune, South India in Chennai, West India in Mumbai and India South Central in Hyderabad – giving the company the largest hyperscale cloud presence in the country. The company also operates two datacenters in partnership with Jio, namely Jio India West and Jio India Central. The region builds on Microsoft’s long-term commitment to India’s digital and AI infrastructure, the US$3 billion investment announced in January 2025, followed by the US$17.5 billion investment announced in December 2025. The region is part of Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure, which includes more than 80 regions in 34 countries, over 500 datacenters worldwide, over 800,000 kilometers of terrestrial and subsea fiber, and over 20 million miles (more than 32 million kilometers) of network cables — making it one of the largest, most trusted and secure cloud infrastructures in the world.
The launch comes as Microsoft Cloud and AI adoption continues to scale across the country, with Microsoft India registering strong double-digit growth on Azure over the last two years. More than 90 percent of NIFTY 100 companies in our analysis are using Microsoft 365 Copilot. Recent Microsoft 365 Copilot momentum across leading ITeS companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro and LTM, which have collectively signed up for more than 400,000 Copilot seats, also signals that enterprise AI adoption is moving from pilots to production-scale deployments across both technology and industrial sectors, thereby driving Frontier Firm transformation across Indian enterprises. Globally, Microsoft 365 Copilot has crossed 30 million paid seats as disclosed in FY 26 Q4 results.
“Microsoft’s fourth India cloud region marks a decisive shift in how hyperscale capacity is being localized for the AI era. With enterprise AI adoption moving from pilots to production at pace; proximity, sovereignty and resilience are no longer differentiators but baseline requirements. A three-availability-zone region in Hyderabad, built with sovereign-ready controls and next-generation zero-water cooling, addresses the twin pressures on Indian enterprises and regulated industries: scaling AI workloads while meeting rising expectations on data governance and environmental responsibility. The demand signal is clear. IDC forecasts India’s public cloud services spending to reach US$45.7 billion by 2030, growing at 22.2% annually, with AI spending expanding at double that rate. This deepening of in-country hyperscale infrastructure will accelerate enterprise modernization and cement India as one of the most strategically important cloud markets in Asia/Pacific.”, said Dr William Lee, Senior Research Director, IDC.
