The data center industry is the backbone of the AI business, and the AI business, as we all know, is where the money’s at these days. As AI becomes the unstable center of America’s weird new economy, the infrastructure necessary to keep the AI going and the money flowing has become all-important, and that’s exactly why Microsoft now appears poised to go on a data-center-building rampage.
During Wednesday’s earnings call, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, told investors that the company plans to double its data center footprint over the next two years, the Wall Street Journal reports. At the same time, Nadella said that his company would “boost its AI capacity by more than 80% this year,” the newspaper writes.
According to its earnings report released Wednesday, the company’s revenue during the first fiscal quarter of 2026 was $77.7 billion—an 18 percent increase from where it was last year at this time. Its operating income, meanwhile, was $38.0 billion, which is a 24 percent increase from this time last year.
It seems like further proof that, while studies seem to show that most businesses that are rolling out AI programs aren’t really profiting from them, somebody is still getting paid. Indeed, the AI boom has been majorly profitable for big fish like Microsoft because everyone and their mother now wants to start an AI-centric business and, to make AI work, you need cloud. It’s previously been noted that other Big Tech giants—like Google and Amazon—are also capitalizing on the current frenzy to suck up vast amounts of computing real estate, so to speak.
If Microsoft is making big bucks from Azure, it’s no wonder it wants to expand it. Azure already lays claim to some 400 data centers in 70 regions around the world. For a time, Microsoft was also the exclusive cloud provider to its special business partner, OpenAI. However, it lost that privilege in January, as OpenAI sought to diversify its cloud relationships. During Wednesday’s earnings call, Nadella reportedly said that his company’s relationship with OpenAI was “one of the most successful partnerships and investments our industry has even seen” and that the two companies would “continue to benefit mutually from each other’s growth across multiple dimensions.”
Despite the big uptick in revenue, Microsoft’s stock still dropped 4 percent today, upon the news that the company planned to spend more in the coming year on its AI business, CNBC reports. To continue the AI-ification of the economy, companies will still need to invest.
