San Francisco, California - Microsoft plans to invest around $80 billion in the expansion of data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) during the current financial year with more than half of that to be invested in the US.

The current fiscal year for Microsoft runs until the end of June.

The additional computing power is intended to be used for training AI models and launching AI-based features worldwide, the company said on Friday in a blog post.

Microsoft became a frontrunner in the use of AI software through a multi-billion dollar pact with ChatGPT developer OpenAI and is attempting to integrate it across its entire product range.

AI software is trained with vast amounts of various types of data – and this requires enormous computer resources.

The already massive data centers necessary for this consume a lot of energy.

It was announced as early as autumn that a reactor at the decommissioned US nuclear power plant Three Mile Island is to be restarted to supply electricity for Microsoft's data centers.

The company agreed to purchase the produced energy for 20 years.

This marks the first time a decommissioned nuclear power plant in the US is brought back online.