Microsoft To Invest Billions in Germany

The investment is to be made in the coming two years, said Microsoft President Brad Smith. It’s the largest sum ever allocated by the company in Germany in forty years of doing business there, he added. 

“Microsoft is committed to enabling companies across the German economy to use AI to remain at the cutting edge of global competitiveness,” Smith wrote on social media. “This 3.2 billion EUR investment will double Microsoft’s AI infrastructure and cloud capacity to meet the country’s accelerating demand for AI services and offer digital skills training for more than 1.2 million Germans by the end of 2025.”

Germany ranks second in the world in terms of usage of AI by organizations and is the second most important developer of AI applications in Europe. But as Smith pointed out, the country currently only ranks eleventh in AI capacity.

Microsoft is expected to invest most of the money in the largest western German regional state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).

“The fact that a global player is making such an investment in North Rhine-Westphalia is a sign of trust and the result of concrete policies to bolster the region as a business location,” said NRW state premier Hendrik Wüst in a statement.

“This is a perfect example of an international company recognizing both Germany’s existing excellence and its potential for growth and improvement in the future,” says Robert Hermann, the CEO of Germany’s international business promotion agency, Germany Trade & Invest. “We expect this expansion to create lots of further business opportunities for international digital companies on the ground in Germany.”