Investors were worried about how much money large technology companies spend on artificial intelligence, did not receive much Microsoft lighting when it reported its last financial results on Wednesday.
In his most recent quarter, which ended on December 31, Microsoft kept his fast drive to build data centers to feed cloud computing and artificial intelligence. It spent $ 22.6 billion in capital costs, almost twice as much as a year earlier.
Microsoft said that this financial year would spend around $ 80 billion in data centers, which ends in June. It is sprinting because it has said that it does not have enough capacity to meet the customer's demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing services.
Those expenditure came across the background of a solid total growth in both profit and income for the technical giant. Turnover increased $ 69.6 billion, an increase of 12 percent compared to a year earlier. The profit increased by 10 percent to $ 24.1 billion. The results beat the expectations of Wall Street and Microsoft's own predictions.
“As AI becomes more efficient and more accessible, we will see more question more exponentially,” said Satya Nadella, Chief Executive of Microsoft, in a phone call with investors.
The questions about AI expenditure among large technology companies became more urgent after a Chinese start-up, Deepseek, shocked Wall Street this week with an advanced AI system that, according to the company, had been developed for a fraction of the strength and costs than leading technology companies that had published.
Microsoft was the first major cloud computing company that reported financial results since the revelation of Deepseek, and the shares fell by around 5 percent on the trade after the hours.
Growth in the sale of Microsoft's flagship Cloud Computing Service, Azure, delayed up to 31 percent, slightly below the expectations of Wall Street. More than a third of that growth came from artificial intelligence. Investors hope that the growth of Azure will collect steam as soon as Microsoft has more capacity to offer customers this year, but managers told investors that it can take until the summer to get sufficient capacity.
The company said that the AI turnover exceeded an annual Run rate of $ 13 billion.
The sale of artificial intelligence of Microsoft includes the sales access to the systems made by the creator of Chatgpt, OpenAI and the delivery of computing power when customers use OpenAI products directly from the start-up. Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAi and recently said that their financial arrangement will expire in 2030.
The company has worked for more than a year to give customers access to AI systems that go beyond that only developed by OpenAI and on Wednesday added a system from Deepseek to the AI models catalog. And last week, when OpenAI announced the Stargate project of $ 100 billion with Oracle and other partners, Microsoft said it had re -negotiated his deal with OpenAi.
Azure is no longer the only supplier of data centers for OpenAI to develop new systems. Microsoft now has first DIBs to spend on infrastructure for OpenAi, but it can say no and prioritize his extra resources – if it has – elsewhere.
“One day like today, the 'bet' looks like a smart one,” wrote Karl Keirstead, an analyst at UBS, in a note to investors on Monday, in the middle of the Deepseekpaniek.
The depth of Deepseek has added uncertainty about the value of Microsoft's investment in OpenAI, but they could also help Microsoft and his colleagues to spend less on capital expenditure, which is generally a good thing, “Mr. Keirstead wrote.
Amy Hood, the financial chef of Microsoft, said investors that the company would increase capital expenditures in the next tax year, but the growth would be at a slower pace.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAi and Microsoft and claims infringement of the copyright of news content with regard to AI systems. The two companies have denied the claims of the suit.)
In other parts of Microsoft's activities, the sale of its online productivity tools for companies, including Excel, teams and word, with 15 percent, grew excluding currency fluctuations. About 5 percent of the eligible Microsoft 365 commercial customers have upgraded to Copilot, Microsoft's AI Companion, according to analysts from Bank of America.
The personal computer activities of Microsoft were essentially flat, for $ 14.7 billion.
