As competition intensifies over dominance in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, big tech companies are aggressively investing in the construction and expansion of AI data centers.

However, with the cost of establishing a single data center running into trillions of won, criticism is mounting that this competition is becoming the exclusive domain of large corporations with ample financial resources.

According to reports from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and other international media on January 6, Microsoft plans to invest $80 billion (approximately 117.76 trillion KRW) in data center construction by the end of its fiscal year in June 2025. This figure represents about 38% of the total capital expenditure of $209 billion (approximately 308 trillion KRW) by the four major big tech companies—Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon—last year.

Brad Smith, Vice Chair of Microsoft, stated in an official blog post on January 3 (local time), "Microsoft will make substantial investments in AI data centers during the 2025 fiscal year to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications worldwide." He added, "More than half of this investment will be made within the United States."

Microsoft's move is seen as a strategic effort to secure a leading position in AI technology, addressing the growing demand for data centers required to train and deploy generative AI models.

Microsoft currently operates over 300 data centers worldwide. Since beginning its investment in OpenAI in 2019, the company has actively expanded its AI investments, including the development of its own AI technologies.

    Microsoft is already leading in AI data center investments. According to a report by the multinational information analytics firm Visual Capitalist, Microsoft invested $46 billion (approximately 67 trillion KRW) in AI data centers from January to August 2024, making it the largest global investor in this sector.

During the same period, Google invested $33 billion (approximately 48.15 trillion KRW), Meta invested $27 billion (approximately 39.4 trillion KRW), and Amazon invested $19 billion (approximately 27.72 trillion KRW) in AI data center operations and infrastructure development. Amazon, with 215 data centers, follows Microsoft in terms of scale and capacity.

However, concerns are growing that such large-scale investments could exacerbate the technological gap between nations. Countries lacking the substantial capital and technological infrastructure required to build data centers are increasingly at risk of falling behind in the global AI race.

The rising costs of training AI models are fueling concerns that global big tech companies may monopolize AI technology. In fact, Google and Amazon are spending significantly more on training AI models than on inference, which refers to running those models. This is attributed to the continuously increasing costs of essential infrastructure, such as dataset creation, power consumption, and high-performance GPUs required for AI training.

In South Korea, there is a growing call for policy support and international cooperation to bridge the technological gap and remain competitive in the global AI race.

In response, the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) has increased the 2024 budget for AI research and development (R&D) by 20% compared to the previous year. This initiative aims to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups in developing AI technologies.

An industry expert stated, "Building AI infrastructure at the national level is essential for securing technological sovereignty and will have a positive long-term impact on the national economy." They added, "Strengthening collaboration with international companies is crucial to narrowing the technology gap and enhancing competitiveness."

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