Microsoft's Massive AI Spending Draws Investor Concerns
The giants of the tech industry are increasing their investments in artificial intelligence, eager to capitalize on an AI surge that has driven stock prices to unprecedented levels.
Earnings reports from Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed the massive sums these companies are spending on everything from data centers to chips, despite ongoing concerns regarding the returns on these investments.
Meta announced that its capital expenditures for 2025 are projected to be between $70 billion (£53 billion) and $72 billion, an increase from a previous estimate of $66 billion to $72 billion.
The company's spending increase in 2026 is expected to be "significantly greater" than that of this year. Meta aims to rival firms such as OpenAI.
During a call with analysts, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg backed the company's investments, expressing his belief in significant upcoming opportunities fueled by AI, concerning both new product development and enhancing its existing business of content delivery and advertising.
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"The correct action is to speed this up," he remarked, later adding: "We are continually running the suite of applications and advertising business in a state of limited computing resources at this time."
Alphabet, which owns Google and YouTube, also boosted its forecast for this year to between $91bn and $93bn, an increase from a previous estimate of $85bn made in the summer, reflecting its growing spending ambitions.
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That estimate is almost twice the capital expenditures the company disclosed for 2024.
Microsoft's capital expenditures for the quarter ending 30 September, which includes investments in data centres, reached $34.9 billion, the company announced on Wednesday—surpassing analysts' expectations and increasing from $24 billion in the prior quarter.
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"We are enhancing our investments in AI in terms of both capital and talent to seize the significant opportunity that lies ahead," stated Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.
According to Mr. Nadella, Azure, the company's cloud computing division, along with Microsoft's various AI offerings, have a "tangible effect" on the world.