The Microsoft CEO said that even though he builds a lot, he also plans to lease a lot of compute. “I am thrilled that I’m going to be leasing a lot of capacity in ’27, ’28,” Nadella said. “Because I look at the builds, and I’m saying, ‘This is fantastic.’ The only thing that’s going to happen with all the compute build is the prices are going to come down.”

Interesting to see Nadella at least partially aligning with critics who point out that there hasn’t really been a viable level of return on the astronomical investments in hardware. Considering how much MS has invested into “AI”, this is a actually a damning statement.

Instead, he compared AI to the invention of the steam engine during the Industrial Revolution. “The winners are going to be the broader industry that uses this commodity (AI) that, by the way, is abundant. Suddenly productivity goes up and the economy is growing at a faster rate,” said the CEO. He then added later, “The real benchmark is the world growing at 10%.”

Here he is back to hype/propaganda mode. 10% annual global GDP growth (especially for many back to back years) is not a realistic target.