India is on the path to become a powerhouse. One of the most important data capitals in the world within the next 25 years. With over 700 million internet users and very high smartphone penetration, India has one of the largest digitally connected populations in the world. India's national tech stack serves over a billion people, with technology that ranks amongst the most advanced, and, not surprisingly, also the most cost competitive.

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India's leadership in digital transformation rests on innovation at scale, with apps and data being central to realising India's vision of inclusive development. There is also enough data to posit that India will become the third largest economy in 2030; with the third largest startup ecosystem and several large unicorns, digital payments in India are projected to reach $10 trillion by 2026.

Accelerated Growth: Macro Drivers

One of the key drivers of this growth story is cloud adoption. According to Gartner, 95 percent of all new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud native platforms by 2025. Native tech effort is the new vehicle for growth, and we need strong, sustainable partnerships between enterprises, governments, startups, and small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India to turbo charge innovation and create jobs for millions.

Recognising this, Microsoft has already started work in creating foundational partnerships that grow the talent and opportunity pool. Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, recently spoke about these partnerships at the Future Ready Applications Summit.

He said, "Our partnership with Jio is aimed at empowering millions of SMBs in the country. We have tied up with the Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial Management and we are exploring how cloud and innovation can transform the future of public finance management in India. We have also partnered with the central and state governments - and are enabling them to leverage Azure to build citizen service apps."

He also highlighted the need to make significant investments in public cloud, and to drive adoption across industries like IT services, BFSI, manufacturing and digital natives.

Driving Enterprise Growth

Organisations need to infuse technology into every business process and function. As most businesses understand, doing more with less is not about working harder or longer. It involves applying technology to amplify what can be achieved across an organisation when you break down silos and turn data into intelligent insights. These can be amplified by cloud native applications and platforms, creating a competitive edge for businesses.

For most businesses, the first logical step is migration and modernisation of the digital estate on the cloud. This can then be followed by fusion of teams, processes, and unification of data. Artificial Intelligence (AI) models can be leveraged to build collaborative business processes, improve efficiency, and power insights. Most importantly, all digitization journeys need to begin and end with security, one of the biggest advantages of cloud adoption.

Growing Native Capabilities

At the heart of this inflection is developer agility. Empowering developers is a means to empower organisations to innovate at scale. Modern engineering methods like DevOps and DevSecOps, trends like inner sourcing, and no code-low code are going to be at the heart of this acceleration.

These methods pave the way for the apps of the future: cloud native, intelligent, collaborative, hyper-personalised applications that scale rapidly. Innovating with agility at scale by driving developer velocity -will be key imperative for enterprises.

For more insights on the future of cloud and the drivers of native innovation, and to participate in conversations that are shaping India's digital narrative, register for CNBCTV18.com presents Future Ready Applications Summit in association with Microsoft.