Microsoft to set up Centre of Excellence in Vizag

Suresh Dharur

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Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, December 28

The Andhra Pradesh Government today signed an MoU with Microsoft India on deployment of information and communications technologies to offer better citizen services in the state.

It was signed during a breakfast meeting that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu hosted for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who is on a four-day visit to his home town.

Under the MoU, Microsoft will offer technology that will help accelerate sustainable double-digit growth and better public services in AP. The technology giant will support building of three proof-of-concept solutions to apply Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and Advanced Visualisation in the fields of education, agriculture and e-Citizen services.

Microsoft India will also provide training to the state government’s executives on Microsoft technologies such as Cloud, Mobility and appropriate Microsoft Technology stack.

“Given that AP is already leading in e-governance, this partnership with Microsoft will bolster Andhra Pradesh’s position in the world’s digital map,” the Chief Minister said.

Microsoft chief agreed to set up a Centre for Excellence in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam.

Later, Nadella visited T-Hub, billed as the country’s largest technology incubator. Nadella said Microsoft would also participate in the programmes dedicated to support the Indian start-up ecosystem.

“Microsoft is keen to work with T-Hub to develop accelerators and start-ups,” he said. Nadella was taken around the 70,000 sq ft catalyst incubation facility created on the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Hyderabad. 

“Indian talent in the area is dramatically growing and we can see their dominance in the field. Microsoft’s goal and dream is to empower local entrepreneurs to solve last mile connectivity,” Nadella said.

The Microsoft CEO promised that he would like to be the enabler for cloud enablement of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This public cloud for SMEs can help in building a sustainable business environment and other eco systems can also benefit from this.