(Disclosure: Rose Law Group represents Microsoft.)
By Dan Rabb | BisNow
Microsoft plans to spend close to $80B on data centers in 2025, up 44% from last year as Big Tech races to build out the infrastructure for its artificial intelligence ambitions.
In a blog post published Friday, Microsoft President Brad Smith revealed the increased spending on data centers for training AI models, deploying AI and hosting cloud-based applications. More than half of that investment will be in the United States, he said.
The spending increase comes on the heels of a 2024 fiscal year in which AI infrastructure spending grew Microsoft’s capital expenditures by nearly 75%.
Even among the tech giants driving the ongoing AI arms race and subsequent data center building boom, Microsoft has been one of the most aggressive when it comes to expanding the scale of its data center footprint. The company’s surging capex has been driven in part by its partnership and infrastructure-sharing agreement with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
