Microsoft-Jio defining partnership of decade: Mukesh Ambani

Congratulating Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella for his leadership of the organisation, Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said on Monday that the collaboration between Microsoft and Jio would be the defining partnership of the decade.

The partnership between the two organizations, announced at the Microsoft' "Future Decoded Summit' here, is aimed at helping organisations of all sizes in the country scale their businesses.

"Every entrepreneur in India has the potential to become a Dhirubhai Ambani or Bill Gates," Ambani said during a fireside chat session with Nadella.

Saying that India has transformed tremendously over the past two decades -- from a $300 billion economy in early 1990s to becoming a $3 trillion economy in 2020 -- Ambani stressed that India is on track to become one of the top three economies of the world.

Ambani said that the mindset to leverage the use of technology already exists in India, but the partnership between Jio and Microsoft will help organizations to get the digital toolset to scale their businesses.

About 38 crore people have migrated to the 4G technology platform offered by Jio in about three years, Ambani informed, adding that since the establishment of Jio, average data rate has come down drastically in India -- from Rs 300-Rs 500 per GB to Rs 12-Rs14 per GB.

Nadella said that the mission of Microsoft is to help organisation to become independent -- not dependent -- to build their own Artificial Intelligence and other tech capabilities, and tech intensity.

"In the next decade, our main investment will be on making software engineeres that organisations hire more productive," Nadella said, adding that Microsoft will build complete toolchain for developers.

The Microsoft CEO said that the increasing rate of digitization of people, places, and things, will be the defining secular trend over the next 10 years.

Saying that Microsoft's differentiated approach across the cloud and edge is winning customers, Nadella said that Microsoft now has 57 data centre regions in the world.

In India, Microsoft has three data centre regions -- Mumbai, Pune and Chennai -- besides a Cybersecurity Engagement Centre in New Delhi.