Underlining the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) President Brad Smith announced the company's ambitious $80 billion plan to invest in artificial intelligence this year, a figure that is greater than the sum total that Ford spent on all of its development over the past hundred years. For the nation's economic future, Smith believes that the United States must lead globally in AI.
Smith called on President-elect Donald Trump and Congress to support university research and the National Science Foundation, which, in a detailed online post, announced an increase in their budgets to encourage innovation. He said the competition over AI between the U.S. and China was a battle over setting global standards. He said China is lending subsidized access to AI chips and data centres to developing nations to lock them in its ecosystem.
Developing AI data centers is where Microsoft is planning to put its hefty investment, along with model training and cloud-based AI applications around the globe. Although they have joined major rival tech giants, such as Amazon, Google and OpenAI, in channelling billions into AI, the time to substantial returns is still far off.
'Over the next four years, it will be critical in terms of building our remaining lead in the area of artificial intelligence and kind of countering what is becoming inevitable,' said Smith. Microsoft ends on a fiscal year basis, and the end is June 2025, so it is a bold step toward the future of AI.
This commitment from Microsoft underscores the fast-accelerating geopolitical and economic stakes in this technological race as AI continues to redraw industry lines.
