Showtime for tech industry; India to lead in artificial intelligence: Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella

Considering how far the tech industry has come, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella feels, It is 'showtime' for them. "The most exciting thing to happen in the industry, perhaps, is the coming of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, an artificially intelligent chatbot," he told CNBC TV18 in an interview.

Meanwhile, he also mentioned the current downturn being experienced by the tech industry is because the demand spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to cool down, and that, coupled with a recession in several parts of the world, has resulted in a "normalisation."

Talking about the future of the industry, Nadella said, “I think the next phase — if you say mobile and cloud was the last paradigm — is going to be artificial intelligence (AI). And that’s kind of going to happen in the next, I would say, two or three years. It will be more like I take it back to 2007-2008, which is when cloud and mobile became big. I think we are in that phase when it comes to AI.”

However, Nadella expects the tech industry to experience a massive growth cycle after 'two years of pain'.

Talking about India, the chief said that the country ranks on the top globally when it comes to AI projects. "And so... this next phase is going to be an AI age (and) you have to be long on India," Nadella said during the interview. "And finally, the fact that India is growing at 6-7 percent is the cherry on the cake".

Also read: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella hails India's lead in digital public goods and infrastructure

Nadella said the most exciting, fundamentally unique thing happening in India right now is that there is a recognition that the next stage is digital, and it requires both private sector innovation and public sector participation.

“In the digital ecosystem, progress is being seen in India’s identity system with the payment infrastructure now scaling into e-commerce and healthcare," the chief executive said.

He feels India is one of the exceptions to the macro challenges assailing many countries such as inflation and recession.

Separately, Nadella also mentioned the biggest lesson the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath taught people to be more empathetic.  He said one of the fundamental things the COVID-19 pandemic brought into focus was that everyone, collectively as a global community had a tail event that impacted all.