Microsoft’s cloud business is experiencing a bottleneck, with data center shortages preventing it from fully capitalizing on skyrocketing demand for AI-driven services. Despite strong growth in Azure AI, infrastructure limitations continue to weigh on the company’s overall cloud revenue, leading to investor concerns. Shares dropped 6% following the announcement.
Amy Hood, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, acknowledged that the company is struggling to scale its data centers fast enough to meet demand. While revenue for Azure AI services soared 157%, the broader cloud division is growing at a more tempered pace, with a projected 32% increase in the fiscal third quarter. Hood reassured investors that these capacity constraints should ease by the end of the fiscal year.
Microsoft’s aggressive push into AI, fueled by its partnership with OpenAI, has positioned the company as a leader in commercial AI adoption. The surge in AI workloads has created a rush for cloud resources, driving unprecedented investment in infrastructure. The company expects to spend $80 billion this fiscal year on AI data centers, contributing to narrower profit margins. In the past quarter alone, capital expenditures reached $22.6 billion, surpassing analyst expectations.
Despite these challenges, demand for Microsoft’s cloud services remains strong. Commercial bookings rose 67%, exceeding internal forecasts. Hood credited this increase in part to Azure commitments from OpenAI, reinforcing Microsoft’s role as a central player in AI computing. The company’s future revenue pipeline also remains massive, with nearly $300 billion in contracted services yet to be recognized.
Microsoft’s AI-driven cloud revenue continues to climb, with 13 percentage points of Azure’s growth attributed to AI in the last quarter. The company estimates that AI revenue has now reached an annualized run rate of $13 billion.
However, the rapid rise of competitors, including the Chinese startup DeepSeek, is raising questions about whether Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar cloud investments will be enough to maintain its dominance in the evolving AI landscape.
As the AI boom accelerates, Microsoft faces a delicate balancing act—meeting surging demand while ensuring its infrastructure investments pay off. With capacity constraints expected to ease later this year, the tech giant is betting that its massive spending will solidify its position as the backbone of the AI revolution.
