Microsoft Plans $80B AI Data Center Expansion, Doubling Global Footprint

Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta are aggressively expanding their AI and cloud infrastructure investments, reflecting the surging demand for AI services globally. Microsoft plans to double its data center footprint with an $80 billion capital expenditure in fiscal 2025, focusing on AI-enabled centers in the U.S., despite a recent global outage caused by a configuration error. Alphabet reported a historic first quarter with over $100 billion in revenue, driven by 16% growth in search and 35% growth in Google Cloud, and plans to raise its 2025 capital expenditure to $91-$93 billion to support AI-powered data centers and cloud services. Meta has also increased its 2025 capex forecast to $70-$72 billion to fund AI data centers and develop AI models, emphasizing the need to maintain long-term competitiveness. The massive investments and strong earnings from these tech giants underscore AI's critical role in their growth strategies and the broader industry trend toward AI-driven cloud infrastructure, with global AI-powered data center capex expected to reach $7 trillion by 2030. Despite challenges like service outages, the companies are prioritizing infrastructure resilience and innovation to meet enterprise AI demands.