The project, announced in May 2024 during President William Ruto’s visit to Washington, was expected to become one of the biggest digital infrastructure investments in East Africa. 

Microsoft and Abu Dhabi-based G42 planned to build the facility in Olkaria, near Naivasha, using geothermal power. It was also meant to host Microsoft’s first Azure cloud region in East Africa.

However, negotiations later became difficult after Microsoft and G42 asked the Kenyan government to guarantee annual payments for part of the data centre’s computing capacity. 

According to reports from Bloomberg, Kenya could not provide guarantees at the level the companies requested, and discussions on the Microsoft data centre project stalled.

The delay has now raised wider concerns about whether Kenya’s current infrastructure can support hyperscale data centres and growing artificial intelligence workloads.

At full scale, the facility was expected to require around 1 gigawatt of electricity. That is close to one-third of Kenya’s current installed power capacity, which stands between 3,000 and 3,200 megawatts.

President Ruto had earlier warned about the pressure such a facility could place on the country’s grid.

“To switch on that one data centre, we would need to shut off power for half the country.”

Kenyan officials say the project has not been abandoned. John Tanui, principal secretary at Kenya’s Ministry of Information, said discussions are still ongoing, although the structure and scale of the project is still under review.

“The scale of the data centre they wanted to do still requires some structuring,” he said, while adding that power requirements are still under discussion.

The government now wants to expand Kenya’s electricity capacity to 10,000 megawatts by 2030 as it pushes to attract more large-scale technology investments.

Officials are also considering a phased rollout, beginning with a smaller 100-megawatt facility before expanding gradually. That approach could reduce immediate stress on the national grid while allowing Kenya to continue negotiations with Microsoft and G42.

The uncertainty around the project also reveals a bigger challenge facing African countries trying to attract global cloud and AI investments. 

While demand for digital infrastructure is growing with speed, many countries still lack the power generation and transmission capacity needed to support energy-intensive facilities.

The delay could also affect the rollout of Microsoft Azure services across East Africa, including cloud tools tied to products such as OneDrive and Copilot.

Neither Microsoft nor G42 immediately responded to requests for comment on the reported Kenya data centre dispute.

The post Microsoft’s $1bn Kenya Data Centre Project Delayed Over Power Demands appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The appointment takes effect immediately. Maxson joins from Schneider Electric, where she served as group CFO.

The company generates more than $45 billion in annual revenue and has seen strong demand linked to data centre growth.

At Oracle, she steps into the role at a time when spending is increasing. The company has been investing heavily in data centres, multicloud systems and AI-ready infrastructure. Demand for those services continues to outpace supply.

Maxson said she would focus on disciplined investment. “I aim to ensure continued disciplined investment for creating lasting value for both customers and shareholders.”

Her background in energy could prove useful. Data centres require large amounts of power, and efficiency has become a growing concern as companies scale AI systems. Oracle has been increasing capacity while managing the cost and complexity that comes with it.

Oracle is growing fast, but that growth is expensive. The company has taken on more debt to support its build-out, and investors are watching closely.

In its latest quarter, Oracle reported its best results in 15 years, with revenue growth above 20%. Even so, its stock has struggled this year. Shares were trading around $146 on April 6, still about 25% below their 52-week high despite a slight rise in early trading.

Investors have pointed to the high debt levels and the cost of scaling AI infrastructure. Competition is also intense, with companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google continuing to invest heavily in their own cloud platforms.

Maxson, 48, will receive a base salary of $950,000 and is eligible for a performance-based bonus with a target of $2.5 million, according to a regulatory filing.

Her appointment also brings a change in leadership structure. Doug Kehring, who has handled the finance role for the past six months, will step down and return to leading go-to-market operations.

Hilary Maxson will report directly to Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk, revealing a stronger link between finance and the company’s cloud growth plans.

The post Oracle Appoints Schneider Electric’s Hilary Maxson as CFO appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Within that surge, the drive between Google and Microsoft has become one to pull focus on, not just for technology leadership, but for how artificial intelligence (AI) turns into profitable business, especially with committed spending.

Two Companies, Two Directions

Even before you look deeper, you’d notice both companies are building similar systems, but you’d see the difference in how those systems are used.

Google is pushing its models into products people already use every day, including Search, Android, and YouTube. Its Gemini platform has crossed 750 million monthly users, giving it reach that few competitors can match.

Microsoft is taking a different route which is more structured. Its Copilot tools are built into Word, Excel, Teams and other workplace software. The idea is to make businesses pay for productivity.

That difference is where we place our attention. Google has scale, while Microsoft has pricing.

The Competition is Infrastructure

It is easy to focus on apps and chat interfaces, but that is not where the case is being decided.

It is in infrastructure you’d find the competition; data centres, chips, and computing power.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, plans to spend $175 billion to $185 billion in 2026 alone, largely on servers, networking and AI capacity.

Microsoft is also increasing spending, with its capital expenditure expected to move towards $100 billion or more, driven by demand for cloud and AI services.

This level of investment changes the nature of the industry. AI is not just software, it is capital-intensive, closer to energy or telecoms than traditional tech.

I would put it this way, whoever controls compute, controls the market.

Products: Gemini vs Copilot

The difference in strategy becomes better to grasp at the product level.

Google’s Gemini is built for wide use, sitting inside search results, mobile devices and developer tools. Updates have been frequent, with new versions released through 2025 and early 2026 to improve reasoning and performance.

Microsoft’s Copilot is more targeted, focusing on workplace tasks, writing documents, analysing spreadsheets, and summarising meetings.

But adoption?

Microsoft has around 15 million paid Copilot users, a small share of its Microsoft 365 base of hundreds of millions.

That gap stresses the fact that interest in AI tools is high. Paying for them is still limited.

Cloud: Where the Money Actually Comes From

The revenue engine is behind the scenes. Google Cloud has been expanding, with revenue growth close to 48% year-on-year, driven largely by demand for AI workloads.

Microsoft Azure is however a larger business, with strong growth tied directly to AI usage and enterprise demand.

This is where the competition becomes tougher because companies are not just using AI tools, they are renting computing power to run them.

Cloud turns AI into something billable.

Spending is Increasing Faster Than Returns

There is, nonetheless, an imbalance.

Microsoft is targeting $25 billion in AI-related revenue by 2026, supported by Copilot and Azure services.

Google is already seeing profits in advertising and cloud from its AI rollout.

But both are spending far ahead of what they are earning.

Even within Microsoft’s ecosystem, only a small percentage of users are paying for AI features, despite heavy investment and promotion.

So when does this start paying off?

It is Important to note that Investors are not ignoring the risk.

Google’s decision to increase spending has already triggered mixed reactions in the market, even as its core business stands strong.

Microsoft is facing a different issue, which is adoption. Copilot is growing, but not at a pace that fully justifies the scale of investment yet.

So the market is in a strange position, believing in the long-term potential, but watching the short-term numbers carefully.

Here the Bigger Question Comes

This has gone beyond a competition between two companies. Will the current level of investment produce the kind of productivity being promised?

The comparison with past technology cycles is unavoidable. Large amounts of capital are being deployed ahead of proven returns. That does not automatically mean a bubble, but it does introduce risk.

Right now, demand for computing power is strong, but what we don’t know is whether that demand will remain strong enough to justify the infrastructure being built.

Who is Ahead?

The answer depends on how you measure it.

Google is ahead when it comes to reach. Its products touch billions of users, and its AI systems are already embedded into everyday digital activity.

Microsoft comes top in structure. It has a clearer path to monetisation through enterprise software and cloud services.

Google and Microsoft are strong when it comes to AI, both are spending heavily, but neither has fully solved the same problem, which is turning scale into sustained profit.

So, let’s not look at who builds the better model between Google and Microsoft or who comes top in AI spending, but who can turn artificial intelligence into a reliable business before the cost of building it becomes harder to justify.

That is where this growth will be decided.

The post Google vs Microsoft: Big Tech & AI Spending in 2026 appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The newspaper said the incidents resulted from errors involving Amazon’s own tool, known as Kiro. In one case in mid-December, AWS customers experienced a 13-hour interruption.

Engineers had allowed the tool to carry out certain system changes. It then decided to “delete and recreate the environment”, the report said, which led to the disruption.

AWS disputed that account.

In an emailed response to Reuters, a company spokesperson said the disruption was brief and blamed it on user error. “This brief event was the result of user error-specifically misconfigured access controls, not AI.”

The spokesperson added that the interruption was “an extremely limited event” affecting a single service in one of AWS’s two mainland China regions. It did not impact compute, storage, database, AI technologies, or any other AWS services, the company said.

The December incidents follow an outage in October that disrupted Amazon’s cloud operations globally. That earlier failure affected Amazon’s own services and several high-profile apps, including Reddit, Roblox and Snapchat.

AWS is the cloud division of Amazon and supports a large share of the internet’s infrastructure. Because of that reach, even short interruptions can affect millions of users and businesses.

Both Amazon Web Services outages in December have drawn attention because they involved automation tools that can act with limited human input.

Cloud providers have been expanding the use of such systems to manage complex infrastructure. At the same time, customers expect stability and clear accountability when problems occur.

Competitors including Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are also developing automated tools to manage their platforms.

AWS maintains that the December disruption resulted from misconfigured access controls, not from the coding tool acting on its own.

The post Amazon Web Services Hit by Two December Outages Linked to Internal Coding Tool appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The talks are described as “very fluid,” and no final decision has been made.

The potential investment comes as competition within the tech industry increases over AI computing power. OpenAI has already signed multi-billion-dollar agreements with Nvidia, Oracle, and Microsoft, as well as a $38-billion cloud services deal with Amazon in November.

“OpenAI plans to use Amazon’s Trainium chips,” The Information reported, which compete with Nvidia and Google’s chips. The report also revealed that Amazon’s funding could lead to a fundraising round with other investors. 

OpenAI is exploring selling an enterprise version of ChatGPT to Amazon, though it is murky if this would include integration with Amazon’s own shopping features.

The talks stress OpenAI’s transition from its non-profit roots. The company restructured in 2023 as a public benefit corporation controlled by a non-profit with a financial stake, removing limitations to raising capital and securing computing resources. Microsoft now holds a 27% stake in OpenAI and has exclusive rights to sell its models to Azure customers.

OpenAI is also preparing for an initial public offering in 2026 that could value the company at up to $1 trillion, Reuters reported in October, potentially making it one of the largest tech listings ever. 

Reports say an Amazon investment could complicate the current Microsoft arrangement and may lead to multi-cloud distribution of OpenAI models.

Despite the surge in AI investment, investors are being careful. The global AI market is expected to surpass $300 billion annually by 2027, but profitability and the sustainability of massive infrastructure spending are still concerns.

OpenAI, Amazon, and Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.

The post Amazon in Talks to Invest $10 Billion in OpenAI appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The company was honoured among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft Azure technology.

AVEVA and Microsoft equip operations teams with AI-powered real-time data insights, enabling smarter manufacturing, stronger supply chains and enhanced consumer relationships.

The collaboration combines AVEVA’s specialised industry expertise with the power of Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Fabric and advanced generative AI technologies across solutions such as the neutral industrial intelligence platform CONNECT, built on Microsoft Azure.

“We’re proud to be named Microsoft’s 2025 Manufacturing Partner of the Year. The award and our work together validates what we’re seeing on factory floors around the world: pairing deep industrial domain expertise with hyperscale cloud intelligence can fundamentally reimagine what’s possible in manufacturing and industry. Capitalising on the business and sustainability opportunities ahead of the sector requires the kind of sustained innovation that only true ecosystem partnerships can enable,” says Rob McGreevy, chief product officer, AVEVA.

AVEVA is a top partner for Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, committed to joint innovation and go-to-market strategies with a strong track record in improving efficiency, sustainability and business-to-plant collaboration benefits for manufacturers and industrial companies.

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards recognise Microsoft partners who have developed and delivered outstanding Microsoft Cloud applications, services, devices, and AI innovation during the past year.

This year, we received more than 4,600 nominations from 100 countries and regions. AVEVA was recognised for providing outstanding solutions and services in manufacturing.

The Manufacturing Partner of the Year Award recognises a partner organisation that excels at providing innovative and unique services or solutions based on Microsoft technologies to industrials and manufacturing customers, which include industrial equipment, aerospace, farm equipment, high tech and electronics, semiconductor, chemicals, and agriculture organisations, demonstrating thought leadership in their industry.

Winners demonstrate deep industry knowledge and expertise, consistent, high-quality, predictable service, and strong growth in new customer additions and revenue by leveraging the latest Microsoft technology as their solution platform.

“Congratulations to all the winners and finalists of the 2025 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards”, said Nicole Dezen, chief partner officer and Corporate Vice President at Microsoft. “This year, our partners harnessed the transformative power of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI platforms to deliver transformative solutions that redefine the boundaries of innovation. The energy and ingenuity across our ecosystem continue to inspire us. The 2025 honourees exemplify what’s possible when technology and vision unite to empower customers around the world.”

The 2025 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards are announced ahead of Microsoft Ignite, which will be held in San Francisco from November 18-21.

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The outage, which began around 16:00 UTC on October 29, was traced to an “inadvertent configuration change” that disrupted DNS routing and caused widespread latency, timeouts, and authentication failures across multiple systems.

The fallout was immediate and spread wide. Core Microsoft services, including Microsoft 365, Xbox, Minecraft, and Azure-dependent applications, were hit. 

Companies relying on Azure infrastructure, such as Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Starbucks, Costco, Kroger, and Capital One, also reported service disruptions that left customers unable to access websites, make payments, or check in for flights.

In a statement on Azure’s status page, Microsoft confirmed the root cause of the incident:

“Starting at approximately 16:00 UTC on 29 October 2025, customers and Microsoft services leveraging Azure Front Door (AFD) may have experienced latencies, timeouts, and errors. We have confirmed that an inadvertent configuration change was the trigger event for this issue.”

Azure Front Door (AFD), which powers global content delivery and accelerates applications, became the central point of failure. The outage rippled across a long list of Azure services, including App Service, Azure SQL Database, Azure Active Directory B2C, Microsoft Sentinel, Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure Maps, and Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management.

By 7:40 PM ET, Microsoft said Azure Front Door had reached “above 98% availability” and that mitigation efforts were ongoing. “We are continuing to work on tail-end recovery for remaining impacted customers and services,” the company added, estimating full recovery by 00:40 UTC on October 30.

Gaming services were also affected. Xbox users experienced connection issues, with many needing to restart their consoles to reconnect. The Xbox Support account later confirmed services were “restored to their pre-incident state.”

Elsewhere, Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines acknowledged that the Azure outage disrupted key operational systems. “We are currently experiencing a disruption to key systems, including our websites,” Alaska Airlines said, urging passengers to visit airport counters for boarding passes.

Retail chains like Starbucks, Costco, and Kroger’s websites and mobile apps were temporarily inaccessible, while some Capital One customers reported difficulty accessing banking services. In the UK, internet provider Community Fibre confirmed that “some customers may have experienced issues due to the Microsoft outage.”

The disruption coincided with Microsoft’s quarterly earnings release, during which even its main website struggled to load properly. While the company managed to restore most services by late evening, the timing of the incident worried investors and analysts about the resilience of global cloud systems.

This outage follows a similar incident just a week earlier involving Amazon Web Services (AWS), which also led to widespread internet disruptions. Analysts warn that such back-to-back failures reveal the fragility of the world’s dependence on a few centralised cloud providers.

The post Microsoft Azure Outage Disrupts Global Platforms, Mars Earnings Release as Website Struggles to Load appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The new systems are already being adopted by hyperscale customers including Microsoft Azure and Alibaba Cloud.

The launch will enhance data centre connections and scale. With the growth of AI training models that span multiple regions, Cisco’s P200 and 8223 systems aim to efficiently link data centres located thousands of miles apart, acting as a unified, high-performance computing network.

Martin Lund, executive vice president of Cisco’s Common Hardware Group, explained the scale of change the company is addressing: “AI compute is outgrowing the capacity of even the largest data centre, driving the need for reliable, secure connection of data centres hundreds of miles apart. With the Cisco 8223, powered by the new Cisco Silicon One P200, we’re delivering the massive bandwidth, scale and security needed for distributed data centre architectures.”

The P200 chip, a deep-buffer routing silicon, replaces 92 separate chips with one. It delivers more than 65% energy savings compared to traditional routers, an important development as hyperscalers face power challenges. 

The chip also supports interconnect bandwidth of over 3 exabits per second, allowing AI workloads to run across multiple facilities without performance loss.

The 8223 routing system is built to complement this. It can process more than 20 billion packets per second, supporting 64 ports of 800G, the highest density of any fixed router available. Its deep buffering feature absorbs data surges generated during AI training, keeping systems stable and responsive.

The system’s design prioritises power efficiency and flexibility. It is the most power-efficient 3RU router in its category, offering switch-like energy performance while managing the intense traffic of AI-driven networks. The 8223 can adapt to changing network protocols through programmability, reducing the need for hardware upgrades and keeping operations agile.

Security is another focal point, as the 8223 integrates line-rate encryption and post-quantum resilient algorithms, backed by continuous monitoring features that provide visibility into performance and threats. This ensures that sensitive AI traffic remains protected as data moves between facilities.

Dave Maltz, corporate vice president of Azure Networking at Microsoft, said: “The increasing scale of the cloud and AI requires faster networks with more buffering to absorb bursts. We’re pleased to see the P200 providing innovation and more options in this space.”

Alibaba Cloud is also deploying the technology to enhance its eCore architecture. “We are pleased to see the launch of Cisco Silicon One P200, the industry’s first 51.2T routing ASIC that delivers high bandwidth, lower power consumption, and full P4 programmability. This breakthrough chip aligns perfectly with the evolution of Alibaba’s eCore architecture,” said Dennis Cai, vice president and head of Network Infrastructure at Alibaba Cloud.

The 8223 is initially being released for open-source SONiC deployments, with IOS XR support to follow. Cisco also confirmed that the P200 silicon will be available for modular and disaggregated platforms, allowing consistent integration across different network sizes.

With AI workloads increasing across industries, Cisco’s latest launch will boost its competitive edge with companies like Broadcom in the networking chip market. More importantly, it stresses how infrastructure innovation, not just software, will determine how effectively global AI systems evolve.

Patrick Moorhead, CEO and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said, “As AI workloads rapidly outpace the capabilities of traditional data centres, the industry faces new challenges in bandwidth, reliability, and scale. Cisco’s 8223, powered by Silicon One P200, marks a significant step forward, delivering the industry’s first 51.2-terabit fixed Ethernet router purpose-built for secure, power-efficient scale-across networking.”

The post Cisco Launches Chip, Router to Connect and Scale AI Data Centres appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The company said most of the proceeds, about 80%, will be directed toward strengthening its cloud business, with investments in new data centres, technology upgrades, and improved customer services. 

The remainder will go into pushing Alibaba’s international e-commerce strategy, as the group doubles down on both cloud infrastructure and overseas markets.

According to deal terms, the bond carries a conversion premium of 27.5% to 32.5% above Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares and matures on 15 September 2032. Investors will have the option of converting into U.S.-listed stock, a move that has raised concerns about potential dilution. 

This worry was seen in New York trading on Wednesday, where the stock dropped 2.2%. In Hong Kong, however, the shares reversed earlier losses to close 2.3% higher at HK$146.10. Year to date, Alibaba’s stock has surged more than 70% in both markets.

CEO Eddie Wu noted the role of artificial intelligence in the group’s future growth during a recent earnings call, saying: “Our investments in AI have begun to yield tangible results. We are seeing an increasingly clear path for AI to drive Alibaba’s robust growth.”

The funding comes as Alibaba executes a commendable AI strategy. The firm has pledged ¥380 billion ($53.37 billion) over three years to strengthen its place in the global AI infrastructure race, rolling out products such as the Tongyi Qianwen 2.0 large language model and AI-powered tools for cloud, logistics, and retail.

This is not Alibaba’s first time tapping the bond market. In July, the company raised $1.5 billion through an exchangeable bond, following a $5 billion convertible bond deal last year.

On the same day as Alibaba’s announcement, China Pacific Insurance also revealed plans for a HK$15.55 billion ($2 billion) zero-coupon convertible bond, underlining the growing appeal of this fundraising route.

Asia-Pacific markets have already seen $27.8 billion worth of convertible bond issuance in 2025, only slightly below last year’s level, which was the strongest in three years. Convertible bonds remain attractive for growth-focused companies as they combine low interest costs with the potential for equity gains.

Alibaba’s investment stresses the scale of capital Chinese technology firms are now deploying to compete globally.

With Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud topping the sector, Alibaba’s latest fundraising shows it is unwilling to cede ground in what has become one of the fiercest technology battles worldwide.

The post Alibaba to Raise $3.2 Billion Through Convertible Bond for Cloud, Global Expansion appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The decision comes just days before the EU’s new Data Act takes effect on 12 September.

The Data Act is designed to break down limitations in the cloud market by reducing vendor lock-in, giving businesses more freedom to move data between providers, and ensuring fair competition. Under the new rules, cloud firms will no longer be able to impose excessive switching costs, with stricter bans on most fees expected by 2027.

Google’s “Data Transfer Essentials” goes further than the law requires. Instead of charging “at cost,” as the Act permits, the company is offering multicloud transfers at no cost. 

Jeanette Manfra, Google Cloud’s senior director of global risk and compliance, confirmed the decision in a blog post: “Although the Act allows cloud providers to pass through costs to customers, Data Transfer Essentials is available today at no cost to customers.”

This makes Google a more customer-friendly option compared to AWS and Microsoft. Microsoft only introduced at-cost transfer fees in the EU in late August, while AWS says its European customers can request reduced rates in certain cases.

For organisations that rely on multiple cloud providers to boost flexibility and resilience, the latest development could reduce financial and technical issues. Analysts note that Google’s decision may appeal particularly to small and medium-sized businesses, which usually face the steepest challenges when navigating cloud contracts.

The EU and UK have both complained about the dominance of U.S. cloud giants. Collectively, AWS, Microsoft, and Google control over two-thirds of the European cloud market. 

Regulators have accused Microsoft of using restrictive licensing that disadvantages smaller providers. Meanwhile, lawmakers in France have flagged risks around data sovereignty, warning that U.S. laws such as the CLOUD Act could allow American authorities to access data stored in Europe.

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