New Delhi, Oct. 12 -- Earlier this month Microsoft promoted Judson Althoff, its longtime sales boss, to chief executive of its commercial business, consolidating sales, marketing, and operations across its products. The move was designed to free up CEO Satya Nadella to focus on technical work, mostly involving artificial intelligence. Nadella said the reorganisation was essential to grow its existing business and build a new frontier simultaneously, amid a "tectonic AI platform shift".

Microsoft's initial momentum in AI came from its data centre capacity and its partnership with OpenAI. Now, with competition intensifying and external pressure mounting, Microsoft is diversifying beyond OpenAI, recalibrating its infrastructure, and reshapi...