Microsoft boss Satya Nadella last night hailed the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution as a ‘massive opportunity’ as he doubled down on the technology in the face of a market backlash.
The comments came after investors were left stunned earlier this week by the arrival of a new AI chatbot developed by Chinese firm DeepSeek, for a fraction of the sums being splurged on the cutting-edge innovation in Silicon Valley.
The development was described as a ‘wake-up call’ for US tech by new president Donald Trump.
Microsoft said yesterday that it had added DeepSeek to its offerings on its Azure cloud platform.
Microsoft, the largest investor in AI’s best-known company, OpenAI – maker of the ChatGPT app – last night published better than expected results for the quarter to December 31.
And Nadella said: ‘We are innovating across our tech stack and helping customers unlock the full ROI [return on investment] of AI to capture the massive opportunity ahead.’
Positive: Microsoft boss Satya Nadella (pictured) hailed the AI revolution as a ‘massive opportunity’ as he doubled down in the face of a market backlash
He said its revenues from AI would top $13billion (£10billion) a year, 175 per cent up on the year before.
Overall sales for the quarter rose 12 per cent to £56billion, beating expectations, while profits rose 10 per cent to £19billion.
But it reported slightly slower than expected growth of 31 per cent in its Azure business.
Results from Meta, the company behind Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were also published last night, showing revenues of £39billion for the fourth quarter.
It signalled its AI-powered marketing tools were continuing to attract advertising across its social media platforms.
The sector was left reeling earlier this week by DeepSeek’s claim that it had developed an AI model that could compete with US rivals, at far less cost.
It sparked concerns about a rising competitor to firms in the West which have poured billions into the technology.
That led to a stock market rout on Monday when Nvidia lost nearly £500billion in the biggest one-day slump for any firm in history.
The 17 per cent share price fall on Monday was followed by a near-9 per cent rise on Tuesday but the stock fell another 4per cent yesterday even as retail investors ploughed more than £700m into Nvidia shares this week.
The emergence of DeepSeek has been described at a ‘Sputnik moment’, a reference to the Soviet Union’s launch of the first satellite in 1957 that kick-started the space race with the US.
But Dutch semiconductor firm ASML, whose computer chips are helping power the AI revolution, hailed it as ‘good news’ for the industry.
Musk cautious on Tesla sales
Sales down: Tesla boss Elon Musk (pictured with President Donald Trump) appeared to admit Tesla will sell far fewer cars than thought this year
Elon Musk last night appeared to admit Tesla will sell far fewer cars than thought this year.
The company saw sales of its electric vehicles fall 4 per cent last year to 1.8m – the first drop since 2011.
In October, the world’s richest man and close ally of Donald Trump, targeted growth of 20 per cent to 30 per cent this year.
But in a cautious update last night, Tesla said: ‘We expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025.’
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