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Ofcom said it received evidence showing Microsoft makes it less attractive for customers to run its Office productivity apps on cloud infrastructure other than Microsoft Azure.

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Microsoft and Amazon were accused by U.K. regulators Wednesday of unfairly restricting competition in the cloud services market, in a significant development that could ultimately lead to an antitrust investigation into their business practices.

Ofcom, the British media watchdog, published the initial findings of a market study examining the massive cloud services market. Ofcom opened a review into the sector in September, seeking to find whether firms offering public cloud infrastructure pose any barriers to competition.

“Our provisional view is that competition is being limited by market features that make it more difficult for customers to switch and use multiple suppliers (known as ‘multi-cloud’),” Ofcom said. Those market features include:

  • “Egress fees” cloud vendors charge companies to transfer data out of a cloud — Ofcom said so-called “hyperscalers” like Microsoft and Amazon set their egress fees “significantly higher” than most other providers.
  • Technical restrictions on “interoperability” from leading cloud firms that prevent some of their services working effectively with those of other providers.
  • Committed spend discounts structured in such a way they can incentivize customers to use a single hyperscaler for all or most of their cloud needs.

The regulator proposed referring the case for further investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, the U.K. regulator tasked with ensuring markets are healthily competitive.

“We received provisional findings from Ofcom today in relation to its Cloud market study and are in the process of reviewing these,” a CMA spokesperson told CNBC via email.

“We stand ready to carry out a market investigation into this area, should Ofcom determine it is required following the completion of its consultation process.”

Microsoft, Amazon and Google, sometimes referred to as “hyperscalers” due to their ability to provide computing and storage at enterprise scale, are the largest players in the massive cloud infrastructure market, which was estimated to be worth £4.5 billion ($5.6 billion) to £5.0 billion in 2021, according to Ofcom.

Microsoft and Amazon’s Amazon Web Services unit command a 60% to 70% share of the market, according to the regulator, with Google accounting for 5% to 10% of total market share.

Ofcom said it was concerned by allegations surrounding licensing conditions set by cloud vendors, singling out Microsoft in particular as an example of companies allegedly “using their strong position in software products to distort competition in cloud infrastructure.”

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The regulator said it received evidence showing Microsoft makes it harder for customers of its Office productivity apps to run them on cloud infrastructure other than Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft, in a statement, said: “We look forward to continuing our engagement with Ofcom on their cloud services market study. We remain committed to ensuring the U.K. cloud industry stays highly competitive, and to supporting the transformative potential of cloud technologies to help accelerate growth across the U.K. economy.”

An Amazon Web Services spokesperson told CNBC: “These are interim findings and AWS will continue to work with Ofcom ahead of the publication of its final report.”

“At AWS, we design our cloud services to give customers the freedom to build the solution that is right for them, with the technology of their choice,” they added. “This has driven increased competition across a range of sectors in the UK economy by broadening access to innovative, highly secure, and scalable IT services.”

Last month, Microsoft reportedly offered further changes to its cloud computing practices to avoid facing an EU antitrust investigation, according to Reuters. It comes after Microsoft last year announced a number of changes to its cloud contract terms, effectively making it easier for customers to use competing cloud services.

The EU has been looking into competition concerns surrounding the company’s cloud business following complaints from France’s OVHcloud and other smaller cloud vendors.

Francisco Mingorance, secretary general of the Cloud Services Providers in Europe, said Ofcom’s findings regarding Microsoft’s licensing practices show that regulators are “waking up to the ways in which Microsoft continues to distort fair competition in the cloud” and recommended national and EU antitrust authorities open formal investigations into the matter.

The provisional findings from Ofcom represent a blow to Amazon and Microsoft, two titans of the technology world. These companies did well out of the Covid-19 pandemic as people were forced into their homes, driving up demand for more digital means of staying connected and doing business.

However, more recently, they’ve faced struggles as pandemic restrictions have been lifted and higher interest rates dented the outlook on technology stocks. Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet all reported deceleration in their respective cloud units in the fourth quarter of 2022.

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Google’s $85 billion capital spend spurred by cloud, AI demand

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Google's  billion capital spend spurred by cloud, AI demand

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc., during Stanford’s 2024 Business, Government, and Society forum in Stanford, California, April 3, 2024.

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Google is going to spend $10 billion more this year than it previously expected due to the growing demand for cloud services, which has created a backlog, executives said Wednesday.

As part of its second quarter earnings, the company increased its forecast for capital expenditures in 2025 to $85 billion due to “strong and growing demand for our Cloud products and services” as it continues to expand infrastructure to power more AI services that use its cloud technology. That’s up from the $75 billion projection that Google provided in February, which was already above the $58.84 billion that Wall Street expected at the time.

The increased forecast comes as demand for cloud services surges across the tech industry as AI services increase in popularity. As a result, companies are doubling down on infrastructure to keep pace with demand and are planning multi‑year buildouts of data centers.

In its second quarter earnings, Google reported that cloud revenues increased by 32% to $13.6 billion in the period. The demand is so high for Google’s cloud services that it now amounts to a $106 billion backlog, Alphabet finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said during the company’s post-earnings conference call.

“It’s a tight supply environment,” she said.

The vast majority of Alphabet’s capital spend was invested in technical infrastructure during the second quarter, with approximately two-thirds of investments going to servers and one-third in data center and networking equipment, Ashkenazi said.

She added that the updated outlook reflects additional investment in servers, the timing of delivery of servers and “an acceleration in the pace of data center construction, primarily to meet Cloud customer demand.”

Ashkenazi said that despite the company’s “improved” pace of getting servers up and running, investors should expect further increase in capital spend in 2026 “due to the demand as well as growth opportunities across the company.” She didn’t specify what those opportunities are but said the company will provide more details on a future earnings call.

“We’re increasing capacity with every quarter that goes by,” Ashkenazi said. 

Due to the increased spend, Google will have to record more expenses over time, which will make profits look smaller, she said.

“Obviously, we’re working hard to bring more capacity online,” Ashkenazi said.

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Nvidia supplier SK Hynix second-quarter profit and revenue hit record highs, topping estimates

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Nvidia supplier SK Hynix second-quarter profit and revenue hit record highs, topping estimates

The SK Hynix Inc. logo is displayed on a glass door at the company’s office in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014. SK Hynix aims to select a U.S. site for its advanced chip packaging plant and break ground there around the first quarter of next year.

SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

South Korea’s SK Hynix on Thursday posted record operating profit and revenue in the second quarter on sustained demand for its high bandwidth memory technology used in generative AI chipsets. 

Here are SK Hynix’s second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate: 

  • Revenue: 22.23 trillion won ($16.17 billion) vs. 20.56 trillion won
  • Operating profit: 9.21 trillion won vs. 9 trillion won

Revenue rose about 35% in the June quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, while operating profit rose nearly 69%, year on year.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, revenue rose 26%, while operating profit jumped 24%.

The company said in a statement that it enjoyed strong demand and favorable pricing conditions in the first half of the year. SK Hynix added that there was a low likelihood of sharp demand corrections for the rest of 2025, due to stable customer inventory levels and expected demand from new product launches.

SK Hynix is a leading supplier of dynamic random access memory — a type of semiconductor memory commonly found in PCs, workstations and servers that is used to store data and program code.

Much of the company’s recent success can be credited to its business in high bandwidth memory, or HBM — a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers. 

SK Hynix has established itself as the global leader in HBM, supplying clients such as U.S. AI darling Nvidia. In the first quarter, this had seen the company overtake rival Samsung Electronics in the global DRAM market for the first time, according to Counterpoint Research.

A report from Counterpoint Research earlier this month estimated that SK Hynix had tied Samsung’s combined DRAM and NAND revenues in the second quarter, with both vying for the top position in the global memory market. NAND is a type of flash memory that is commonly used in storage devices. 

Samsung and US.-based memory maker Micron Technology are both seeking to catch up to SK Hynix in the HBM space. However, analysts expect SK Hynix’s dominance to persist in the short-term.

“As of now, I believe SK Hynix still holds its leadership in the HBM race … despite Samsung’s and Micron’s catch‑up efforts,” said Ray Wang, research director of semiconductors, supply chain and emerging technology at The Futurum Group. 

“I expect this edge to persist through the rest of 2025 and extend into 2026,” he added.

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IBM shares drop despite earnings beat

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IBM shares drop despite earnings beat

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna appears at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 16, 2024.

Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images

IBM shares fell as much as 5% in extended trading on Wednesday after the tech conglomerate issued second-quarter results that topped Wall Street projections.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: $2.80 adjusted vs. $2.64 expected
  • Revenue: $16.98 billion vs. $16.59 billion

IBM’s revenue increased nearly 8% year over year in the quarter, according to a statement. Growth in the first quarter was below 1%. Net income, which includes costs related to acquisitions, rose to $2.19 billion, or $2.31 per share, from $1.83 billion, or $1.96 per share, a year ago.

Software revenue climbed about 10% to $7.39 billion, exceeding the $7.43 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount. Hybrid cloud revenue, including Red Hat, showed 16% growth. The software unit’s gross margin of 83.9% was barely narrower than StreetAccount’s 84.0% consensus.

Revenue from consulting rose almost 3% to $5.31 billion, higher than StreetAccount’s $5.16 billion consensus. Infrastructure revenue went up 14% to $4.14 billion, above the $3.75 billion StreetAccount average estimate.

During the quarter, IBM announced the next-generation z17 mainframe computer and the acquisition of data and artificial intelligence consulting firm Hakkoda.

IBM called for over $13.5 billion in 2025 free cash flow, similar to a projection from April. The company still sees at least 5% revenue growth at constant currency for the year.

As of Wednesday’s close, IBM shares were up 28% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index has gained around 8% in the same period.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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