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CoreWeave Denies Contract Cancellations with Microsoft

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CoreWeave, the AI cloud startup preparing for an IPO, denied claims of contract cancellations with Microsoft on Thursday, following a Financial Times report suggesting that Microsoft had moved away from some agreements with the company.

A CoreWeave spokesperson emphasized in a statement to Reuters that there had been “no contract cancellations or walking away from commitments” and labeled the Financial Times’ claims as “false and misleading.” Despite the report, which cited sources indicating that Microsoft had withdrawn from some deals due to delivery issues and missed deadlines, it also noted that Microsoft continued to maintain some ongoing contracts with CoreWeave, highlighting the continued importance of their partnership.

Microsoft, however, declined to comment on the matter.

In 2024, Microsoft accounted for 62% of CoreWeave’s revenue, or approximately $1.2 billion, as per a company filing. CoreWeave had previously warned that any significant changes in its relationship with Microsoft could negatively impact its business, given the critical role the tech giant plays as a customer.

Founded in 2017 and backed by Nvidia, CoreWeave provides AI workloads and high-performance cloud infrastructure, competing with major cloud providers such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS. The company has been preparing for an IPO, targeting a valuation of over $35 billion, with plans to raise more than $3 billion in the upcoming share sale.

Microsoft to Invest $300 Million in South Africa’s AI Infrastructure Expansion

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Microsoft has announced plans to invest an additional 5.4 billion rand ($296.81 million) in South Africa by 2027 to expand its cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, catering to the increasing demand for Azure services in the region.

At a Johannesburg event on Thursday, Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith revealed the company’s strategy to support digital skills development. Microsoft will cover the cost of technical certification exams for 50,000 individuals in areas of high demand, including cloud architecture, AI, and cybersecurity.

This new investment builds on Microsoft’s previous expenditure of 20.4 billion rand, which was used to establish South Africa’s first enterprise-grade data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town. These facilities have positioned the country as a critical hub for data centres to meet the growing computational needs of AI as businesses look to integrate the technology into their services.

Looking ahead, Microsoft plans to spend approximately $80 billion globally in fiscal 2025 to advance data centre infrastructure, with a focus on training AI models and deploying AI-powered applications and cloud services.

Google Tests AI-Only Version of Search Engine with New “AI Mode”

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Google has launched an experimental version of its search engine that removes the traditional 10 blue links in favor of AI-generated summaries. This new feature, available to subscribers of Google One AI Premium, can be accessed by clicking on a tab labeled “AI Mode” alongside options like Images and Maps.

Robby Stein, Vice President of Product at Google, explained that the company had received feedback from power users who wanted AI responses for a broader range of searches. Google One AI Premium is a $19.99 per month subscription that offers additional cloud storage and access to exclusive AI features.

In its ongoing push to integrate AI into search, Google has introduced AI Overviews, which provide summaries of search results above the usual links to webpages. These Overviews are already available in over 100 countries, and last year, Google began incorporating ads into these AI summaries.

With AI Mode, the company takes this a step further by offering more detailed AI summaries with links to the sources. The traditional blue links are replaced by a search bar, allowing users to ask follow-up questions. Powered by Google’s custom Gemini 2.0 model, AI Mode is designed with advanced reasoning capabilities, making it more adept at handling complex queries.

This new development represents a significant move for Google, as it faces increased competition from Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which introduced search functions in ChatGPT last October. AI-driven search is now a major area of focus for Google, with Alphabet’s 2024 revenue—mostly driven by search-related advertising—under threat from emerging AI competitors.

However, the shift to AI-powered search has raised concerns. In February, educational technology company Chegg filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the AI previews of diminishing the demand for original content and harming publishers’ ability to compete.