Microsoft said it is “slowing down or suspending” some of its data center structures, including a $1 billion project in Ohio. Artificial Intelligence Technology This has encouraged large-scale infrastructure expansion, so you may not need as many powerful computers as you would expect.
Tech Giant this week has suspended an early stage project on rural land owned in Licking County, central Ohio outside of Columbus, and confirmed it will reserve two of its three farmland sites.
“In recent years, demand for cloud and AI services has increased more than we had anticipated, and we have begun running the largest and most ambitious infrastructure scaling project in our history to meet this opportunity.”
“A critical new effort at this scale and scale requires agility and refinement as you learn and grow with your clients, meaning you are delaying or suspending early-stage projects,” Walsh said.
Microsoft did not say whether other projects were slowing outside of Ohio on Wednesday, but it was revealed in late December that it had suspended the late stages of its large data centers. Wisconsin Project.
Analysts at TD Cowen reported earlier this year that Microsoft had reduced some of its international data center expansion and cancelled several US leases due to the use of data centers run by other companies.
Other analysts have linked some of the changes to the changing relationship between Microsoft and business partner Openai, the maker of ChatGpt.
“Openai was moving in one direction,” said Craig Ellis, research director at B. Riley Securities, “Openai was moving in one direction,” while huge computing resources needed to train data, prioritizing the development of more advanced AI systems.
On January 21, the companies announced that they changed their agreement that Microsoft became the exclusive provider of Openai’s computing power, allowing small businesses to build their own capabilities. President Donald was newly launched on the same day. Trump promoted Openai’s partnership Oracle and SoftBank pledge to a new $500 billion AI infrastructure in the US, Texas Data Center.
Microsoft has long built data centers around the world to run cloud computing services. The Generated AI Boom has accelerated the demand for such facilities as trained new AI systems and millions of people began using chatbots and other AI tools at work and at home.
The computing that takes to run AI tools is expensive and requires a lot of electricity. Use his emergency authorities A reliable but polluted energy source to boost the decline in the US coal industry. High-tech companies are trying to leverage nuclear power. Microsoft-supported revival proposal Of Pennsylvania’s closed three-mile island factories, supplying the power grid that supplies data centers in Ohio and Virginia. The largest data center hub.
Microsoft said it plans to spend more than $80 billion globally globally to expand the fiscal year ending in June, and has already doubled the capacity of its data centers in the past three years.
“We may be strategically paced our plans, but we will continue to grow strong and allocate investments that align with business priorities and customer demand,” Walsh said.
Nonetheless, the Ohio suspension was disappointed by local officials.
Lisking County brings together data center investments from Microsoft Rivals Google and Meta Platforms, as well as highly anticipated semiconductor factories from Intel, but the struggling chip maker I was pushed back in February Expected completion date for the first phase of the project through 2030.
