Why Microsoft intentionally
slow down in the
computing-power race?
- 01. Risk Transfer
- 02. Margin Optimization
- 03. The Strategic Pivot
- 04. Hardware Synchronization
Clarification Reasons Behind Microsoft’s Pause on Data Center Construction. Microsoft is still chasing the AI wave, but is no longer aggressively pursuing self-built data center expansion.
Risk Transfer Microsoft is effectively offloading the risks and heavy capital costs associated with physical infrastructure construction to "neocloud" providers.
Margin Optimization While compute leasing is scalable, it suffers from low gross margins. Consequently, Microsoft is redirecting its resources toward higher-value priorities.
The Strategic Pivot Microsoft is shifting focus to leverage its unique competitive advantages: building the comprehensive infrastructure ecosystem required for AI model training, data utilization, and Agent execution. This is the segment that commands high gross margins and true market dominance (pricing power).
Hardware Synchronization Nvidia’s chip upgrade cycle is moving too fast. Every iteration necessitates costly overhauls to cooling, optics, communications, and server racks. Therefore, Microsoft is choosing to pace itself, aligning its procurement with Nvidia’s annual GPU update cycles to purchase in batches rather than over-committing to rapidly depreciating hardware.