AI models are becoming commodity, data one of the most strategic assets, says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella on December 12 said data is the most strategic asset a company has in the age of AI, as AI models become more commoditised.

“In the experience layer, data is one of the most strategic assets, and it is one of those things that is super important in the age of AI. But you have to use that data contextually to the AI,” Nadella said in Mumbai, during the last leg of his three-city Microsoft AI Tour.

“In fact people talk about context engineering. And I think it's a good term for it. Because a lot of what needs to be done, both at this engineering level, and business visioning level, is to think not about the silos of the previous generation, but the contextual way you can feed intelligence with data,” he explained.

According to Nadella, there will be a direct correlation between the performance of AI models and how good is the data being used to feed it. “In some sense, models are becoming a commodity.”

He added that organisations sit over tacit knowledge that could that can be used to build these data sets. The knowledge an organisation stores include the knowledge of people, their relationships with other people, their work artifacts, whether they're spreadsheets, documents, their conversations in email, meetings in teams, Nadella said.

Such databases were used to build Microsoft’s Work IQ. “Work IQ is the part underneath M365 that now can be brought to bear in the context of any AI solution you want to build. Not just Copilot, any agent you build out there, you can now use work IQ,” he said.

Over the past three days, Microsoft made several key announcements in the country as Nadella toured across Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.

The biggest of them all was on December 9, when the technology giant announced an investment of $17.5 billion in India between 2026 and 2029 to accelerate the country’s cloud and AI infrastructure, skilling and sovereign digital capabilities.

This is the company’s largest investment in Asia and builds on the $3-billion commitment announced in January, which Microsoft said would be spent by the end of 2026.

On December 11, in Bengaluru, Nadella said Microsoft is deepening its partnerships with Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro to accelerate the adoption of agentic AI.

Each of the four companies will deploy more than 50,000 Copilot licences, collectively taking the rollout to above 2,00,000 licences as they embed AI into core workflows.

On December 12, in Mumbai, he unveiled MahaCrimeOS AI platform in partnership with the Maharashtra government to to accelerate cybercrime investigations. The AI and Azure-powered platform was developed by CyberEye, a partner ISV of Microsoft, the state government's Special Purpose Vehicle MARVEL, and Microsoft India Development Center (IDC).

The platform is currently live in 23 Nagpur police stations, with the CM proposing to expand it to all 1,100 police stations across Maharashtra.

The proposed statewide expansion will enable police stations across Maharashtra to digitally register and investigate cybercrimes using standardised, AI-powered workflows.