Microsoft to spend US$80 Billion on AI data centres

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More than half of this projected spending through June 2025 will be in the United States, Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote in a blog post Friday. Recent AI progress is thanks to “large-scale infrastructure investments that serve as the essential foundation of AI innovation and use,” Smith wrote.

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Cloud infrastructure providers like Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc. have been racing to expand computing capacity by constructing new data centres. In the previous fiscal year ending in June 2024, Microsoft spent more than US$50 billion on capital expenditures, the vast majority related to server farm construction fuelled by demand for artificial intelligence services.

Smith also cautioned the incoming Donald Trump administration against “heavy-handed regulations” related to AI. “The most important U.S. public-policy priority should be to ensure that the U.S. private sector can continue to advance with the wind at its back,” Smith wrote.

The country needs “a pragmatic export control policy that balances strong security protection for AI components in trusted data centres with an ability for U.S. companies to expand rapidly and provide a reliable source of supply to the many countries that are American allies and friends,” Smith wrote.

Bloomberg.com

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