Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), a titan in the technology industry with a market capitalization of $3.09 trillion, continues to dominate the software and cloud computing landscape while making significant strides in artificial intelligence (AI).

Microsoft has spent months touting a rebound in its Azure cloud business and its quarterly revenue forecast on Wednesday will show whether billion-dollar bets on artificial intelligence are propelling increased growth in its main profit engine.

Microsoft Corp. said its cloud-computing business will continue to grow slowly in the current quarter as the company struggles to build enough data centers to handle demand for its artificial intelligence products.

Microsoft on Wednesday forecast disappointing growth in its cloud computing business, sending its shares down 4.5% in after-hours trading as investors worry about big spending, elusive artificial intelligence revenue and competition from cheaper AI models from China.

Microsoft MSFT.O has made Chinese startup DeepSeek's R1 artificial intelligence model available on its Azure cloud computing platform and GitHub tool for developers, the U.S. company said on Wednesday. The AI model will be available in the model catalog on the platforms and will join more than 1,800 models that Microsoft is offering.

Chinese cloud giant Alibaba says that its Qwen2.5-Max artificial intelligence model outperformed its rivals at OpenAI, Meta and DeepSeek.

KEY TAKEAWAYS OpenAI said Wednesday that it is probing whether Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek improperly used its data to launch the low-cost model that spooked markets Monday.The comment by OpenAI follows a Bloomberg report that both OpenAI and its biggest backer Microsoft are investigating DeepSeek's model.