Microsoft to expand AI, cloud infrastructure in Japan

Microsoft said it would invest $2.9 billion ($4.4 billion) over two years to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure in Japan, the latest in a series of overseas expansions by large tech firms to support the development of artificial intelligence.

The investment – the company’s largest in the 46 years of its operations in the country – will also go towards skilling 3 million people in AI and setting up a Microsoft Research Asia lab in Tokyo.

Server operators are expanding their data centres and cloud computing assets globally to support a boom in AI applications and workloads, after the late 2022 launch of ChatGPT.

Amazon.com’s cloud unit is investing US$10 billion in Mississippi and another US$5.3 billion in Saudi Arabia towards data centres in those regions.

Google is building a data centre just outside London for US$1 billion.

Microsoft’s Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services are the top three cloud computing companies in the world.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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