Amazon and Microsoft are plowing billions of dollars of AI funding into India, with the e-retail giant pledging to spend $35 billion there by 2030, and Microsoft earmarking $17.5 billion over four years to develop the AI frontier and integrate the technology “at population scale.” The funds are expected to encourage AI-powered digitization, cloud growth, increased exports and new job creation — all national priorities for the South Asian territory. Amazon has already invested nearly $40 billion in India, which is emerging as a global AI and cloud hub. The new investment is Microsoft’s biggest yet in Asia and follows a $3 billion India commitment announced earlier this year. Continue reading India Attracts $52B in AI Investments from Amazon, Microsoft

Anthropic continues to close major deals as it reportedly moves toward an IPO, possibly coming as soon as Q1 (although Sasha de Marigny, the company’s chief communications officer, said there are no immediate plans to go public). The Amazon-funded AI startup’s latest contract provides its Claude models to cloud software firm Snowflake in a $200 million multiyear deal. Snowflake’s AI agents will use Claude to help businesses handle complex data analysis. As for the IPO, Financial Times reports Anthropic is working with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati — a law firm whose CV includes IPOs for Google, LinkedIn and Lyft — and may be in a race with OpenAI to see who can be first to offer its shares publicly. Continue reading Anthropic Secures $200M Snowflake Deal as IPO Talk Builds

Google has signed on to provide collaborative multi-cloud networking with Amazon using its new “AWS Interconnect – multicloud,” now in preview. Amazon says the new collaboration will simplify multi-cloud networking via managed, private, on-demand access to cross-cloud connectivity. The jointly engineered solution leverages Google’s Cross-Cloud Interconnect technology. The idea is “to enable customers to easily build enterprise-grade applications that span both Google Cloud and AWS environments,” Amazon explains, pointing out that the adoption of multi-cloud applications is rapidly accelerating, driven at least in part by the rise in use of AI. Continue reading Amazon and Google Team on High-Speed Multi-Cloud Service

Microsoft’s new Azure AI data center in Atlanta, Georgia — the second in its Fairwater series — is ushering in a new era of connected AI super clusters that will power what The Register calls “the 100 trillion-parameter models of the near future.” Fairwater Atlanta, which became operative in October, is part of “a new class of data center – one that doesn’t stand alone but joins a dedicated network of sites functioning as an AI superfactory to accelerate AI,” training models “on a scale that has previously been impossible,” according to Microsoft. The new purpose-built data center is connected to the tech giant’s first Fairwater site, located in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. Continue reading Microsoft Introduces New Era of Connected AI Super Clusters

OpenAI has entered into a $38 billion cloud computing deal with AWS in a deal set to extend at least seven years, the hyperscaler says. The Monday news propelled Amazon stock to an all-time high of $254 per share, up 4 percent at close. After initially working exclusively with investor Microsoft for cloud services, OpenAI has negotiated expansively to meet increased demand. This year, the startup has signed with Oracle, Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom for storage and processing power as well as funding for data center construction plans of its own, here and abroad. The strategic alliance with AWS marks OpenAI’s first such arrangement with Amazon. Continue reading OpenAI Sets $38 Billion AWS Deal for Training and Inference

Amazon Q3 revenue was up 13 percent to $180.2 billion in the third quarter, compared with $158.9 billion in 2024. The AWS group that includes AI saw sales increase 20 percent year-over-year to $33 billion. The company reported that gross profit increased 38 percent to $21.2 billion for the quarter, due largely to consumer spending online and the demand for cloud computing. Amazon is the dominant player in the cloud space with about 30 percent of global share. However, investors have been cautious about AWS, which accounted for 65 percent of the company’s total operating income in Q3. Since 2022, competition has heated up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT signing on with Microsoft Azure. Continue reading AWS, Cloud and AI Help Drive Impressive Quarter for Amazon

Increased demand for cloud computing and AI services has propelled revenue growth of 18 percent to $77.7 billion for Microsoft for its fiscal Q1, ending September 30. Net income was $27.7 billion for the quarter, an increase of 12 percent year-over-year. “Our planet-scale cloud and AI factory, together with Copilots across high value domains, is driving broad diffusion and real-world impact,” said Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, noting “It’s why we continue to increase our investments in AI across both capital and talent to meet the massive opportunity ahead.” The news coincides with OpenAI’s next steps in becoming a for-profit company and an update in Microsoft’s stake in the AI startup. Continue reading Microsoft Market Cap Passes $4 Trillion Propelled by OpenAI

Microsoft is teasing a bespoke AI image generator. The model, called MAI-Image-1, was designed in-house and works using text prompts. It is the third AI model Microsoft has debuted this year, following MAI-Voice-1 and MAI-1-preview, both released in August. The company, which is OpenAI’s largest investor, has been seeking to put some breathing room between itself and the startup to better position the fledgling firm for independence and profitability. And products exclusive to Microsoft surely won’t hurt that company’s bottom line. “We’re creating AI for everyone,” Microsoft says, calling MAI-Image-1 “the next step on our journey.” Continue reading Microsoft’s In-House AI Image Generator Receives High Marks

Meta Platforms has agreed to a six-year deal with Google Cloud valued at $10 billion as part of its push into artificial intelligence. Use of Google Cloud data centers are expected to help the social media giant bring leading-edge AI tools to market more quickly. This is the first agreement between Google Cloud and Meta, which continues to work with the number one and two global cloud providers by market share, Amazon Web Services (30 percent) and Microsoft Azure (20 percent). Third-place Google has been aggressively pursuing big cloud contracts as it seeks to grow its 13 percent share. Continue reading Meta Secures $10 Billion Deal with Google Cloud for AI Efforts

Amazon Q2 earnings outperformed analyst expectations, but a strong performance wasn’t enough to quell market fears in light of a gloomy forecast and Amazon Web Services growth seen as anemic, at +17.5 percent, which was slower than the expansion of its competitors Microsoft Azure (+39 percent) and Google Cloud (+32 percent). Amazon’s Q2 profit was $18.2 billion, up nearly 30 percent on revenue of $167.7 billion, a 13 percent gain year-over-year. Advertising income of $15.7 billion was almost $1 billion more than StreetAccount’s estimate of $14.9 billion. But for the current quarter, Amazon estimated operating income between $15.5 billion and $20.5 billion. Continue reading Amazon Profit Is Up 30 Percent, but Forecast Spooks Market

The $88 billion Microsoft invested in building data centers for artificial intelligence and cloud computing over the past year seems to be paying off with the company reporting profit of $101 billion for fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30. Quarterly revenue for the April through June period was $76.4 billion, up 18 percent year-over-year, with profit of $27.2 billion, a 24 percent increase. “Cloud and AI is the driving force of business transformation across every industry and sector,” said Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, noting Azure passed $75 billion in revenue for the year, up 34 percent. Continue reading Driven by AI and Cloud, Microsoft Profit Exceeds $100 Billion

OpenAI is adding Google Cloud to its list of global infrastructure providers for ChatGPT after relying exclusively on Microsoft Azure since the chatbot’s 2022 launch until January 2025 when Stargate was announced. Oracle and CoreWeave are also OpenAI cloud providers. Oracle is a Stargate investor, as is Nvidia, which holds a minority interest in CoreWeave. OpenAI has been active as it heads toward a December deadline for transitioning to a for-profit company. Meanwhile, ChatGPT is integrating a payment system to receive commissions on sales it initiates, and yesterday OpenAI launched a new AI agent that can perform complex tasks within a user’s browser. Continue reading OpenAI Contracts Google Cloud and Debuts ChatGPT Agent

Microsoft has entered into a five-year strategic partnership with the Premier League, replacing Oracle as the British football association’s official cloud partner in addition to providing AI services. Premier League mobile and web apps will begin featuring a chatbot powered by Copilot and Microsoft AI, which will also be used for the league’s fantasy games. The Premier League says it has 1.8 billion fans in 189 countries and claims to be “the world’s most-watched football league.” Microsoft will also help modernize the League’s technical infrastructure, both internally and in broadcast operations. Continue reading Microsoft Nets British Premier League as Cloud and AI Client

Florida-based Infinite Reality, the metaverse startup that acquired music service Napster in March for $207 million, has rebranded itself as Napster Corp. and launched a division called Napster AI that plans to foster fan interactivity and virtual experiences through its AI products and services, starting with the beta release of Napster Spaces. The new division leverages agentic AI tech of a company called Touchcast that Infinite Reality acquired last month for $500 million. Its flagship product, Mentor, “is a complete AI learning and development department at a click of a button.” Built using OpenAI models and delivered on enterprise-grade Azure, Mentor was introduced in November at Microsoft Ignite. Continue reading Infinite Reality Rebrands as Napster and Launches Agentic AI

Microsoft has “tapped on the brakes” of its spending on artificial intelligence, reducing capital expenses by more than $1 billion in the first three months of 2025. But after 10 straight quarters of increased AI outlay, momentum continues to propel the sector forward with new data center commitments in 16 countries and the expansion of the Phi small language family with the debut of Phi-4 (that supports text, visual and voice inputs). The moves come on the heels of $70 billion in sales for the first three months of 2025, when profits were up 18 percent to $25.8 billion. Continue reading Microsoft Reduces Spending on AI but Momentum Continues