BENGALURU, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Microsoft ( MSFT ) will

invest about $3 billion to expand capacity for artificial

intelligence and its Azure cloud-computing services in India,

CEO Satya Nadella said on Tuesday.

The tech giant is the latest to pledge investment in India,

a country seen as a key growth market for U.S. technology

companies thanks to its population of more than 1.4 billion

people and low-cost internet access.

Executives ranging from Nvidia ( NVDA ) chief Jensen Huang

to Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun have visited

India in recent months.

The $3 billion investment in India would be the "single

largest expansion" done in the country, Nadella said at a

conference in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) will also train 10 million people in AI in India

by 2030, Nadella said.

When Nadella visited India early last year, he announced the

company will provide 2 million people in the country with AI

skilling opportunities by 2025, focused on training individuals

in smaller cities as well as rural areas.

Nadella met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday,

and the pair discussed "tech, innovation and AI" and

"Microsoft's ( MSFT ) ambitious expansion and investment plans in India."

Microsoft ( MSFT ) has been pouring billions of dollars into

expanding capacity across the globe to boost AI infrastructure

and its data-center network.

The company last week unveiled plans to invest about $80

billion in fiscal 2025.

The investment, more than half of which will be in the

United States, will focus on developing data centers to train AI

models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications.