SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft beat analysts’ expectations in its latest quarterly report, saying on July 29 that the results were partly driven by its cloud and artificial intelligence divisions.The tech giant reported US$90 billion (S$116 trillion) in revenue and US$35.8 billion in net income in the last quarter of its fiscal year which ended in June, potentially alleviating concerns from investors and analysts about whether its investments in AI are paying off.Its AI-powered business productivity tool, called Copilot, also has over 30 million paid users which shows “confidence” from customers as they use Microsoft to “power their AI transformation”, chief executive officer Satya Nadella said in a statement.Microsoft also saw a US$3.2 billion gain from its investment in Anthropic, the company said.Its investments in OpenAI boosted Microsoft’s net profit by US$480 million in its fourth quarter and US$4.9 billion for its full fiscal year, the company added.Major tech companies in the United States have been spending billions to build out AI infrastructure and develop increasingly more advanced AI models.Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta are collectively on track to pour roughly US$700 billion into AI data centres, chips and computing infrastructure in 2026 alone.In June, Google parent company Alphabet announced it would raise up to US$80 billion in stock to fund its AI efforts, with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway committing US$10 billion.Investors and analysts will be looking for clues about Microsoft’s ongoing plans to pour cash into AI projects during a call with analysts later on July 29. AFP