Microsoft plans to spend $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on the construction of data centers that can handle artificial intelligence workloads, the company said in a Friday blog post. 

Over half of the expected AI infrastructure spending will take place in the U.S., Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith wrote. Microsoft’s 2025 fiscal year ends in June. 

“Today, the United States leads the global AI race thanks to the investment of private capital and innovations by American companies of all sizes, from dynamic start-ups to well-established enterprises,” Smith said. “At Microsoft, we’ve seen this firsthand through our partnership with OpenAI, from rising firms such as Anthropic and xAI, and our own AI-enabled software platforms and applications.”

Several top-tier technology companies are rushing to spend billions on Nvidia graphics processing units for training and running AI models. The fast spread of OpenAI’s ChatGPT assistant, which launched in late 2022, kicked off the AI race for companies to deliver their own generative AI capabilities. Having invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI, Microsoft provides cloud infrastructure to the startup and has incorporated its models into Windows, Teams and other products.

Microsoft reported $20 billion in capital expenditures and assets acquired under finance leases worldwide, with $14.9 billion spent on property and equipment, in the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Capital expenditures will increase sequentially in the fiscal second quarter, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said in October.

The company’s revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 33% year over year, with 12 percentage points of that growth stemming from AI services.

Smith called on President-elect Donald Trump‘s incoming administration to protect the country’s leadership in AI through education and the promotion of U.S. AI technologies abroad.

“China is starting to offer developing countries subsidized access to scarce chips, and it’s promising to build local AI data centers,” Smith wrote. “The Chinese wisely recognize that if a country standardizes on China’s AI platform, it likely will continue to rely on that platform in the future.”

He added, “The best response for the United States is not to complain about the competition but to ensure we win the race ahead. This will require that we move quickly and effectively to promote American AI as a superior alternative.”

Sales of foreign phone brands in China plunged in November, according to official data released Friday, underscoring further pressure on Apple, the biggest international handset vendor in the country.

In November, foreign mobile phone shipments in China stood at 3.04 million units, according to CNBC calculations based on data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, or CAICT.

That’s a fall of 47.4% from November 2023, and a 51% drop from October last year.

CAICT does not break down figures for individual brands, however Apple accounts for the majority of foreign mobile phone shipments in China with competitors like Samsung forming only a tiny part of the market.

The figures highlight the mounting pressure Apple is under in the world’s largest smartphone market as it battles rising competition from domestic brands.

Huawei, for instance — whose handset business was crippled by U.S. sanctions — saw a resurgence in the back end of 2023 and has aggressively launched high-end smartphones in China that have proved popular with local buyers.

Huawei’s growth far outstripped Apple in the third quarter of last year, according to the latest data from research firm IDC.

Apple is hoping its iPhone 16 series, which was released in September, will help the company regain momentum in China, with the Cupertino, California, tech giant promising a host of new artificial intelligence features via its Apple Intelligence software.

However, Apple Intelligence is not yet available in China due to complex regulations around AI in the country.

In the meantime, some of Apple’s domestic rivals have been touting their own AI features that are available on devices now.

In a show of how critical China is for the iPhone giant, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the country multiple times last year in an effort to shore up partnerships for Apple Intelligence with local Chinese firms.

In a bid to spur interest in the iPhone 16, Apple will begin discounts for the device on Saturday as part of a Lunar New Year holiday promotion.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Facebook parent Meta is replacing President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, the company’s current policy vice president and a former Republican party staffer.

The shake up comes three weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, and it’s the latest sign of how tech companies are positioning themselves for a new administration in Washington.

Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister, said he is stepping down, citing the new year as the right time to move on. He’ll be replaced by Kaplan, who will take on the title of Chief Global Affairs Officer.

Kaplan was a staffer under former President George W. Bush, and he appeared at the NYSE with Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Trump in December. He also attended Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing in 2018 as a personal friend, causing a controversy for the social media company.

“I will look forward to spending a few months handing over the reins — and to representing the company at a number of international gatherings in Q1 of this year,” Clegg wrote in a memo to his staff that he shared on Facebook on Thursday.

Clegg joined the company in 2018 after a career in British politics with the Liberal Democrats party, and he helped Meta navigate incredible scrutiny, especially over the company’s influence on elections and its efforts to control harmful content. Clegg also helped steer the company through the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook shared user data with third-party political consultants. He also represented the company in Washington and London, frequently at panels for artificial intelligence and at congressional hearings.

“My time at the company coincided with a significant resetting of the relationship between ‘big tech’ and the societal pressures manifested in new laws, institutions and norms affecting the sector,” Clegg wrote.

In his note, Clegg said that former Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin would replace Kaplan as Meta’s vice president of global policy. He mentioned that Kaplan would work closely with David Ginsburg, the company’s vice president of global communications and public affairs.

“Nick: I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for Meta and the world these past seven years,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. You “built a strong team to carry this work forward. I’m excited for Joel to step into this role next given his deep experience and insight leading our policy work for many years.”

Semafor first reported the news.

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