Speaking at the Sydney leg of the global tour, the Microsoft CEO revealed several investments in compute, education, AI and cyber.

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Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

Microsoft has made three big announcements for the Australian tech industry, including a $25 billion investment into AI, infrastructure, security and skills, the biggest the company has ever made.

On stage at Microsoft AI Tour in Sydney, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told attendees that the tech giant is making its “biggest commitment in Australia” with the $25 billion cash injection.

“This will allow us to expand this ability to generate the tokens and provide the cloud infrastructure,” Nadella told attendees.

“I think one of the things that gets lost is we just think about the tokens.

“But when I talked about those hosted agents, hosted agents need classic course, classic storage. Every co work session needs storage and compute.”

By the end of 2029, the company will invest the $25 billion in new digital infrastructure, alongside new commitments to national cyber defence capability and workforce skilling programs.

Nadella explained where he sees the future of AI and cloud going.

“One of the things that we are going to see is the explosion of both cloud and AI accelerators, and that’s one of the things that we are very excited about making sure we continue to invest and bring all of that,” he added.

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[L-R] Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft, and Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia

Upskilling millions of Aussies

As part of its investment, the tech giant has pledged to train at least three million Australians with “workforce-ready AI skills” by 2028.

The company claims this is the largest commitment of its kind ever made in Australia.

The commitment builds on Microsoft’s previous goal to skill one million people across Australia and New Zealand by the end of 2025.

Nadella said, “We’re really thrilled to double down on the skilling investments we’re making.

“There’s going to be a real change in the way we work, the tools we use to work. To be able to get ahead of all of the jobs and the economic opportunity that gets created,

“It’s going to be very, very important for all of us, including Microsoft, to do the work, to bring the skilling and the upskilling that is required.”

This announcement follows Microsoft’s landmark AI framework agreement with the ACTU earlier this year.

Signals Directorate and Cyber Shield

Microsoft is also continuing its investment in its Microsoft–Australian Signals Directorate Cyber Shield (MACS) partnership

This investment sees an expansion of its collaboration with the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), Home Affairs and the Digital Transformation Agency.

Microsoft’s investment in MACS will be extended to cover additional federal agencies, delivering security configuration and threat visibility across the government’s existing Microsoft technology investment.

Commenting on the expanded partnership, Nadella said, “We are also thrilled to expand our partnership with the Signals Directorate and Cyber Shield.

“One of the challenges we all collectively face is, how do we protect ourselves? Defend ourselves and our organisations against cyber threat actors?

“That’s a signals game, that’s an intelligence game, and we want to make sure that we are able to extend that Cyber Shield arrangement such that the most vulnerable, like the small business or the consumer is protected when it comes to any cyber attack,” he explained.

Nadella ended, “Our mission always remains to empower every person, in this case, in Australia and every organisation to be able to achieve more.”

CRN Australia has reached out to Microsoft for further comments on these announcements.