Microsoft said on Wednesday that it “slows down or pauses” some of its data center projects, describing movement as a demonstration of flexibility as the artificial intelligence industry (AI) is evolving.
“In recent years, the demand for our cloud and AI services has increased more than what we could have planned and to respond to this opportunity, we have started to execute the most important and ambitious infrastructure project in our history,” wrote Noelle Walsh, president of Microsoft Cloud Computing Operations, wrote, wrote, In a Wednesday post On LinkedIn.
“By nature, any new important business in this size and on this scale requires agility and refinement as we learn and grow with our customers. This means that we slow down or do not take projects at an early stage, “she said.
The announcement comes when IA companies pay unprecedented quantities of funding in infrastructure to meet the demand for calculation and energy of emerging technology.
Microsoft is still on the right track to spend more than $ 80 billion on infrastructure, a company spokesperson confirmed.
However, the company has revealed changes to a variety of its data center plans, in particular the stopping of projects in the licking county of the center of Ohio.
A Microsoft spokesperson told the hill that these projects had been interrupted “after special attention” and that two of the three sites will be used for agriculture.
And last December, the company announced Ussed a large data center project in Wisconsin Because it entered the subsequent phases.
“We plan that our data capacities need years in advance to make sure that we have enough infrastructure in the right places,” the spokesman told The Hill. “While the demand for AI continues to grow and our presence of data continues to develop, the changes that we have made demonstrate the flexibility of our strategy.”
The Trump administration has been pressure for more development in data centers to help accelerate AI technology. These centers are home to rows of servers that provide the processing capacity for automatic learning, cloud storage and AI systems.
Last week, the administration identified 16 sites for data centers on land belonging to the Ministry of Energy, Secretary Chris Wright describing the “world race for the domination of AI” as the “following Manhattan project”.
The ministry said that he hoped that center operations could start at the end of 2027.
During his first week at the White House in January, President Trump announced an investment in the private sector up to $ 500 billion to build AI infrastructure.
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