Microsoft (MS) plans to more than triple its global data center capacity by 2032 to meet rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services.
According to Bloomberg on the 10th (local time), MS is pushing to increase its data center capacity from the current 12 gigawatts (GW) to 38 GW by 2032. Capacity allocated to AI-only chips is just about 2 GW now, but once the expansion is complete, roughly one-third of total capacity is expected to be used for AI computing.
MS spent $145 billion (about 190 trillion won) on capital expenditures in the 2026 fiscal year that ended in June. The market expects large-scale investments to expand data centers and AI infrastructure to continue for several years.
However, MS faced capacity shortages after Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Amy Hood, concerned about overinvestment, put the brakes on data center construction early last year. When the Chinese e-commerce platform Temu failed to secure server capacity in the regions it needed on MS cloud, it signed a large contract with Oracle.
The developer platform GitHub also had to rent Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers after suffering about eight hours of service disruption due to insufficient data center capacity. Xbox introduced usage time limits to prevent overload as cloud gaming users surged.
The race to secure data centers is emerging as a key variable that determines customer acquisition and service stability. If MS fails to keep its expansion schedule, it could lose cloud customers to rivals such as Amazon, Google, and Oracle. Conversely, if it secures capacity as planned, it is expected to strengthen the growth base of Azure and Generative AI services.