{"id":559980,"date":"2026-05-01T05:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T05:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559980\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T05:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T05:10:21","slug":"microsoft-eases-fears-over-ai-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559980\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft eases fears over AI costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft reported faster third-quarter sales growth in its cloud computing unit, easing investor concerns about the return on spending on artificial \u00adintelligence infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s largest software company said its Azure cloud-computing business saw a 39 per cent revenue gain during the quarter after adjusting for currency fluctuations, ahead of the 38\u200aper cent growth reported in the prior quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shares of Microsoft edged up $0.55, or 0.2 per cent, to $425.01 in after-hours trading.\u00a0
Overall third-quarter sales rose 18 per cent year-on-year to $82.9 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $81.4 billion. Net income rose 23 per cent year-on-year to $31.8 billion, ahead of analysts\u2019 expectations of $30.26 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u2060results could boost investor \u00adoptimism amid fears<\/a> that sluggish adoption of Microsoft\u2019s Copilot 365 \u00adassistant for businesses \u200band a heavy reliance on OpenAI have dented Microsoft\u2019s early lead in the AI race. Microsoft has lagged rivals so far this year, with the shares down<\/a> more than 10 per cent, while other big technology companies have posted gains.<\/p>\n

Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft, said: \u201cWe are focused on \u00addelivering cloud and AI infrastructure and solutions that empower every business to [achieve] their outcomes in the agentic computing era.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationMicrosoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, since 2019Reuters<\/p>\n

Amy Hood, chief financial officer of Microsoft, said: \u201cWe delivered results that exceeded expectations <\/a>across \u00adrevenue, operating income, and earnings per share, reflecting strong execution and growing demand for the \u00adMicrosoft Cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microsoft is among four of America\u2019s biggest public companies reporting \u00adresults last night. Alphabet, Amazon and Meta Platforms<\/a> also reported after the bell. They are among the biggest \u00adinvestors in AI<\/a> computing infrastructure, spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a boost for chipmakers, power companies and data centre builders.<\/p>\n

Microsoft said that capital expenditures were $31.9 billion in the quarter, below the average analyst estimate of $35.3 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Microsoft made a big bet on OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in 2019, and has since invested more than $13 billion, with OpenAI becoming a big customer of Microsoft\u2019s cloud services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This week it was announced that OpenAI renegotiated a \u200cpact that let Microsoft exclusively sell the ChatGPT creator\u2019s AI models, clearing the way for the start-up to forge new deals with rivals including Amazon.<\/p>\n

Microsoft will \u200bremain OpenAI\u2019s \u00adprimary cloud partner with a licence to the start-up\u2019s intellectual property through to 2032.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft reported faster third-quarter sales growth in its cloud computing unit, easing investor concerns about the return on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-559980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}