Ola to transfer its total workload from Microsoft’s Azure to Krutrim cloud unit: CEO

The action follows Aggarwal’s criticism of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, a social media platform that focuses on employment, on Thursday.

Business

By Sneha Sengupta On May 11, 2024

The founder and CEO of Ola, Bhavish Aggarwal, announced that the mobility startup has chosen to transfer all of its workload from Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to its own Krutrim cloud within the next week.

“Since LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft and Ola is a big customer of Azure, we’ve decided to move our entire workload out of Azure to our own Krutrim cloud within the next week. It is a challenge as all developers know, but my team is so charged up about doing this,” stated Aggarwal, in a blog post.

Aggarwal accused LinkedIn of imposing political ideology on the platform by removing his article about pronoun disease. He emphasized that India must create its own artificial intelligence and technology.

“Any other developer who wants to move out of Azure, we will offer a full year worth of free cloud usage. As long as you don’t go back to Azure after that ! Mail us on exitazure@olakrutrim.com. Offer is perpetually open,” he added.

The dispute arose earlier this week when Aggarwal was referred to by LinkedIn’s AI as “they” rather than “he,” which led him to doubt the AI’s objectivity and charge the platform of promoting a political agenda.

“Dear LinkedIn, this post of mine was about YOUR AI imposing a political ideology on Indian users that’s unsafe, sinister. Rich of you to call my post unsafe! This is exactly why we need to build own tech and AI in India. Else we’ll just be pawns in others political objectives,” wrote Aggarwal on X (formerly Twitter).

Aggarwal has made a strong case for the advancement of homegrown technology. He acknowledged in the blog that he cannot instantly end LinkedIn’s monopoly, but he pledged to collaborate with the Indian developer community to create a DPI (digital public infrastructure) social media platform.

“DPIs like UPI, ONDC, Aadhaar etc are a uniquely Indian idea and is even more needed in the world of social media. The only “community guidelines” should be the Indian law. No corporate person should be able to decide what will be banned. Data should be owned by the creators instead of being owned by the corporates who make money using our data and then lecture us on “community guidelines,” mentioned Aggarwal.

Aggarwal stated that Ola is in favor of sincere diversity-related activities as an Indian institution. He claimed that the business operates one of the biggest car plants exclusively for women. The current count is close to 5,000, with plans to reach the tens of thousands in the upcoming years.

“And regarding gender inclusivity, we don’t need lectures from western companies on how to be inclusive. Our culture didn’t need pronouns to be inclusive for thousands of years. On a personal note, I had visited Ayodhya last year and learnt about how transgenders had been accorded special respect in our culture from ancient times,” added Aggarwal.

“I wouldn’t have waded into this debate, but clearly Linkedin has presumed Indians need to have pronouns in our life, and that we can’t criticise it. They will bully us into agreeing with them or cancel us out,” said Aggarwal. “And if they can do this to me, I’m sure the average user stands no chance. As a founder and CEO, this Western DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) system has a major impact on my business if it grows an entitlement mindset in our professional lives and I will fight it.”

He wrapped up, “This situation brings me to the need for us to build our own Indian tech platforms. I’m not against global tech companies. But as an Indian citizen, I feel concerned that my life will be governed by western Big Tech monopolies and we will be culturally subsumed as the above experience shows,” said Aggarwal. “This is not about Ola or any of my companies. Ola is too small to make any impact against this. I want to confront this forced ideology as a free-thinking Indian and do what I can in my capacity. So here are the actions I’m taking. Putting my money where my mouth is.”

Bhavish Aggarwal Ola