Artificial intelligence: Microsoft invests 3.3 billion euros in AI in Germany

The US technology group Microsoft plans to invest almost 3.3 billion euros in artificial intelligence (AI) in Germany over the next two years. Microsoft President Brad Smith announced this in Berlin during a conversation with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). The money will be used to expand data center capacities for AI applications and cloud computing.

It is the largest single investment in Microsoft’s 40-year history in Germany. It also includes an AI training program that aims to reach up to 1.2 million people.

The plan is to establish new capacities in Bedburg, Bergheim and Elsdorf near Cologne. The group is seeking physical proximity to major customers of its cloud services, including Bayer and RWE. This should keep delays in data exchange between data centers and applications low.

“Great contribution to structural change in the Rhenish district”

Hesse should also benefit from the investments. The Rhine-Main region is Germany’s leading location for data centers, as the large Internet exchange DE-CIX is located in Frankfurt am Main. Vast quantities of digital data are exchanged via it every second. A Microsoft cloud center that already exists in the region is to be expanded.

North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) viewed the investment as “a strong signal for Germany and a great contribution to structural change in the Rhenish region”. With this billion-dollar decision, Microsoft is making a significant contribution to sustainably driving forward the transformation of the economy in its federal state. “The fact that a global player is making such an investment in North Rhine-Westphalia is a sign of trust and the result of concrete location policy.”

Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI

Germany leads the list of announced investments by the world’s leading software company: Microsoft President Smith promised last November to invest 2.9 billion euros in Great Britain by 2026 to drive the growth of AI applications. Just over a month earlier, he had promised Australia around three billion euros.

Microsoft is a leading player in AI, for example because it invested several billion dollars early on to invest in the Californian AI start-up OpenAI. The latter presented its AI bot ChatGPT in November 2022. Microsoft has meanwhile invested billions more to build up large computing capacities for training AI. The group uses AI technology, among other things, in its search engine Bing and in its office programs as a so-called copilot. The main competitor is Google with its AI program Gemini.

The US technology group Microsoft plans to invest almost 3.3 billion euros in artificial intelligence (AI) in Germany over the next two years. Microsoft President Brad Smith announced this in Berlin during a conversation with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). The money will be used to expand data center capacities for AI applications and cloud computing.

It is the largest single investment in Microsoft’s 40-year history in Germany. It also includes an AI training program that aims to reach up to 1.2 million people.

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