JOHANNESBURG: Microsoft will invest an additional 5.4 billion rand ($296.81 million) in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in South Africa, Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said on Thursday.

Smith also said at an event in Johannesburg that the world’s biggest software maker would pay for technical certification exams for 50,000 individuals in high-demand digital skills.

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Microsoft announced in January that it was planning to invest about $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on developing data centres to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications.