Over half of the investment is reserved for infrastructure. Microsoft President Brad Smith frames AI investment as key to economic growth.

Microsoft says it plans to spend $80 billion on building AI data centers in the 2025 financial year, a significant increase on last year.

According to a report from CNBC, Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) is making a bold move to solidify its dominance in the artificial intelligence space and plans to invest $80 billion in AI-enabled data centers by the end of its fiscal 2025.

Microsoft said Friday it would spend $80 billion to built out AI-enabled data centers in the fiscal year that ends in June.

The planned spending represents a 44% increase from last year, and more than half of it is expected to come in the U.S.

While Microsoft is thinking on a global scale, the company's Vice Chair and President said more than half of this total investment will be in the US

The tech giant will funnel more than half of the investments into U.S.-based facilities, Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said Friday.

Microsoft is planning to invest about $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on developing data centers to train artificial intelligence (AI) models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications, the company said in a blog post on Friday.

Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders, followed closely by Google and AWS, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Its estimate of Microsoft’s capital spending on AI, at $62.4 billion for calendar 2025, is lower than Smith’s claim that the company will invest $80 billion in the fiscal year to June 30, 2025.

Tech giant Microsoft has unveiled plans to invest $3bn to bolster cloud and AI infrastructure in India over the next two years. The investment aims to bolster India's long-term competitiveness by equipping ten million people with AI skills over the next five years.