In the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, Microsoft increased its revenue by 18 percent to $76.4 billion, significantly exceeding analysts' expectations of $73.9 billion. Net profit climbed by 24 percent to $27.2 billion. This continues the success story of the cloud division and the rapid commercialization of artificial intelligence. The stock rose by 8 percent in after-hours trading, which could lift the market value above the $4 trillion mark for the first time.

Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform, recorded a 34 percent increase in revenue to $75 billion for the entire year – a figure disclosed separately for the first time. In the quarter, cloud revenue amounted to $46.7 billion, compared to $36.9 billion in the prior-year period. Analysts such as Dan Ives from Wedbush assessed the strong growth of Azure revenues as clear evidence of the effectiveness of AI initiatives.

CEO Satya Nadella sees the company amid a "generational tech shift" through AI. Microsoft had gained market share in each quarter of 2024 and is expanding its data centers faster than any competitor. CFO Amy Hood announced investments of $30 billion for the current quarter - part of an annual budget of $120 billion. For comparison: in 2023, expenditures were still at $32 billion.

A large part of the investments is flowing into the expansion of infrastructure for generative AI. Since entering OpenAI in 2019, Microsoft has secured access to the most powerful models, including GPT-4, which has been embedded in many products such as the Copilot features for Office. However, the partnership, which also includes the exclusive provision of computing power, is currently up for renegotiation.

In parallel, Microsoft is diversifying its model offerings with open-source models like Meta's Llama and Musk's Grok. According to management, demand continues to outstrip supply – a reason why investments are being accelerated. According to internal sources, Microsoft even plans to raise up to $120 billion in capital for infrastructure development, with initial talks with financial investors underway.

While initial successes are visible in the corporate sector – according to Nadella, 100 million people worldwide use Copilot tools – the breakthrough in the consumer market has so far failed to materialize. Google's Gemini reaches around 450 million users, ChatGPT even more than 600 million.

Compared to the competition, Microsoft has scaled its AI investments significantly more. Just last week, Alphabet increased its spending to $85 billion. Microsoft surpasses this with a planned annual volume that exceeds even the total investments of many industrial companies. Capital expenditures in the past quarter were $24.2 billion – an increase of 27 percent compared to the previous year.