Microsoft and Yotta Data Services have announced a strategic partnership to accelerate AI innovation in India by integrating Microsoft’s Azure AI capabilities with Yotta’s sovereign AI infrastructure platform, Shakti Cloud. The collaboration aims to support India’s national AI ambitions under the IndiaAI Mission by enabling high-performance, real-time AI solutions across sectors like healthcare, education, manufacturing, and finance.
Partnership to support IndiaAI Mission and homegrown AI model development
By combining Microsoft’s advanced AI models, tools, and development environments with Yotta’s GPU-rich, India-hosted infrastructure, the partnership seeks to deliver scalable, secure, and low-latency AI capabilities to startups, enterprises, public sector entities, and academic institutions. The IndiaAI Mission, led by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), has already received over 500 proposals for developing indigenous AI models. This partnership directly supports that mission by enhancing the country’s ability to build, test, and scale AI responsibly within its own data borders.
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Through this integration, Microsoft’s AzureAI services—covering machine learning, large language models (LLMs), small language models (SLMs), agents, and application services—will be hosted on Shakti Cloud, bringing India-specific AI development to a secure and compliant environment. The joint effort will also provide access to built-in safety tools such as content filters, groundedness checks, and copyright protections.
A unified push for trusted hybrid AI systems
The collaboration between the two companies is anchored in the vision of establishing India as an AI-first nation. The combined stack—featuring Microsoft’s AI model catalogue, GitHub ecosystem, and security portfolio along with Yotta’s locally hosted, GPU-powered AI infrastructure—will enable developers and enterprises to build hybrid AI systems that prioritize trust, performance, and data sovereignty.
Critical industries including agriculture, media, retail, and finance are expected to benefit from the hybrid architecture that delivers ultra-low latency for inferencing and fast AI model training. The partnership will also help streamline AI deployment through Microsoft’s AI Foundry, allowing Indian organizations to leverage foundational AI models at scale.
The initiative builds on Microsoft’s ongoing AI collaborations in India, including its January 2025 commitment to IndiaAI through AI Centres of Excellence and AI Productivity Labs aimed at driving inclusive technological advancement.
With this partnership, Yotta and Microsoft aim to provide the digital backbone for India’s next wave of AI development—backed by infrastructure, safety, and sovereignty at every layer.
