Microsoft brings its fourth Indian cloud region online in Hyderabad, the first delivery against a $17.5 billion commitment

Microsoft has brought its fourth Indian cloud region online in Hyderabad, declaring general availability of India South Central on August 6. The three-availability-zone build is the largest hyperscale region Microsoft operates in the country and, by the company’s count, gives it the biggest hyperscale cloud footprint of any provider in India. The region joins existing sites in Pune, Chennai, and Mumbai, plus two data centres operated with Jio. It arrived on schedule after Microsoft described it in December 2025 as spanning an area roughly equivalent to two Eden Gardens stadiums.

The region is the first concrete capacity delivery against the $17.5 billion India commitment Microsoft announced in December 2025, its largest investment in Asia. That four-year programme, covering 2026 through 2029, followed a $3 billion commitment made in January 2025, bringing total pledged India spending to $20.5 billion. Early customers are concentrated in regulated industries: HDFC Bank plans to use Hyderabad as a disaster-recovery region, and Bajaj Finance, payments company PB Pay, and Adani Digital Lab are also named. Financial services is where India’s data-residency requirements are strictest.

The physical build tells the more interesting story. The cooling system uses air-cooled chillers that consume no water, part of the zero-water design Microsoft announced in 2024 for its new data centre generation. On power, Microsoft has been building India infrastructure aggressively, signing multi-year power purchase agreements tied to more than 1,000 MW of new solar, wind, and hybrid projects, with over 630 MW already operating. Microsoft disclosed in February that it matched 100% of its annual global electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases across roughly 40 GW of contracted clean power in 26 countries.

One caveat sits inside the announcement: eligible Microsoft Cloud services run from Hyderabad at general availability, with further services arriving over time. A region going live and every Azure and Microsoft 365 workload being available in it are two different milestones. IDC forecasts India public cloud spending reaching $45.7 billion by 2030, growing at 22% annually, with AI spending expanding at roughly twice that rate. India’s data centre market is drawing a queue of hyperscale commitments, and Microsoft is converting pledges into concrete faster than most.