By Fabiola Ar\u00e1mburo<\/p>\n
April 23 (Reuters) – Microsoft<\/a> said on Thursday that it will invest A$25 billion ($17.9 billion) in Australia by the end of 2029 to boost computing and artificial intelligence<\/a> capacity, \u200cbetting on growing demand for the technology in the country.<\/p>\n The U.S. tech giant’s latest investment \u200creflects rising demand for AI technologies and positions Australia as a key growth market.<\/p>\n Microsoft said the investment will support the expansion \u200bof its Azure AI supercomputing and cloud infrastructure, strengthen cybersecurity and promote AI skills development across the country.<\/p>\n “Australia has an enormous opportunity to translate AI into real economic growth and societal benefit,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, currently visiting Sydney as part of the company’s global AI tour, said in a statement. He described the initiative as \u200cMicrosoft’s largest investment in Australia to \u2060date.<\/p>\n Microsoft and its Big Tech rivals Alphabet, Amazon and Meta will collectively invest about $650 billion to scale up AI-related infrastructure this year, according to Bridgewater Associates.<\/p>\n “This is \u2060a serious vote of confidence in Australia as a tier-one AI market,” eToro Analyst Josh Gilbert said.<\/p>\n “For a long time, the AI capex conversation has been a U.S. story, with occasional nods to Japan, Singapore, and even the \u200bMiddle East. \u200bThe fact that Microsoft is now putting this kind \u200bof capital behind Australia, alongside similar moves \u200cacross the globe, shows the region is squarely in the AI build-out plan,” Gilbert added.<\/p>\n The investment also comes at a time when Microsoft faces growing competition in AI assistants, with its Copilot tool competing against offerings such as Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini. The Windows maker has been racing to improve Copilot to drive better adoption.<\/p>\n Microsoft also announced plans to expand its commercial cloud and AI, including graphics processing unit offerings, \u200cfor Australian customers by more than 140% by the end \u200bof 2029.<\/p>\n For Microsoft, the investment “is about defending Azure’s turf, locking \u200bin enterprise customers, and buying distribution in \u200ba market where the AI race is still wide open,” eToro’s Gilbert added.<\/p>\n The latest \u200ccommitment builds on Microsoft’s A$5 billion investment in \u200b2023 aimed at expanding \u200bits hyperscale cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Australia.<\/p>\n “More training, better technology and new opportunities for Australians to get ahead. That’s what the massive AI investment Microsoft announced today will mean for \u200bAustralia,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said \u200cin a post on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Fabiola Ar\u00e1mburo April 23 (Reuters) – Microsoft said on Thursday that it will invest A$25 billion ($17.9…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,48380,69270,218,219,986,11101,61,4082,975,60,181147,1071,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-412859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-assistants","10":"tag-ai-technologies","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-artificialintelligence","13":"tag-australia","14":"tag-cloud-infrastructure","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-infrastructure","17":"tag-investment","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-josh-gilbert","20":"tag-microsoft","21":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}