Microsoft Plans $190 Billion of Capital Spending This Year. Wednesday Shows Whether Azure Is Keeping Up.
A 61% jump in capital spending only works if cloud demand keeps outrunning supply. The next test arrives this week.
Overview
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) told investors back in April what this year would cost. The software giant expects about $190 billion of capital expenditures in calendar 2026, up 61% from 2025, as it races to build the data centers its cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) businesses demand. Chief financial officer Amy Hood added a detail that made the number sting a bit more: about $25 billion of it simply reflects higher component prices, as memory and storage costs surge across the industry.
On Wednesday, July 29, Microsoft reports results for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year. The report is the next test of the bargain underneath all that spending -- whether demand for Azure, the cloud business at the center of this build-out, keeps growing fast enough to pay for it.
Details
So far, it has. Here's a closer look at both sides of the ledger heading into Wednesday's report.
Source
Originally published at www.fool.com.