How Microsoft Catapulted to 3Trillion USD on the Back of AI 微软如何凭借对AI的押注取得3万亿美元市值

Microsoft MSFT -0.38%decrease; red down pointing triangle on Thursday became the second company ever to end the trading day valued at more than $3 trillion, a milestone reflecting investor optimism that one of the oldest tech companies is leading an artificial-intelligence revolution. 

In the past decade, Microsoft’s success has come from smart bets by Chief Executive Satya Nadella. One of his biggest gambles in recent years has been partnering with an untested nonprofit startup—generative AI pioneer OpenAI—and quickly folding its technology into Microsoft’s bestselling products. That move made Microsoft a de facto leader in a burgeoning AI field many believe will retool the tech industry.

Because of the OpenAI relationship “Microsoft to me is ahead of Alphabet and Meta and has a great shot of being a software leader in AI,” said Synovus Trust portfolio manager Daniel Morgan, who owns Microsoft shares.

Microsoft’s capitalization first rose to about $3 trillion in midday trading Wednesday but closed below the mark. On Thursday, Microsoft shares rose 0.6% to $404.87.

Microsoft’s ascendance on the back of AI excitement may signal a changing guard atop tech. 

Apple became the first company to close above the $3 trillion mark in June, reflecting the lasting impact and resilience of the iPhone. Earlier this month, Microsoft briefly dethroned Apple as the most highly valued publicly-listed company in the world.

Apple had regained the top spot, but Microsoft surpassed it again at the close Thursday. Microsoft is now valued at $3.009 trillion, versus Apple’s $3.002 trillion. Apple shares have underperformed other tech giants so far this year, amid concerns about the company’s sales and its position in the AI race.

The AI boom unofficially kicked off in November 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, a chatbot built by Silicon Valley nonprofit startup OpenAI that uses so-called “large language models” to write poems, craft emails and generate computer code. 

Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAI. In multiple rounds over the past five years, it has agreed to invest $13 billion in OpenAI in exchange for what is essentially a 49% stake in the earnings of its for-profit arm. The relationship has also given Microsoft early access to OpenAI’s latest models, which are trained and hosted on the company’s cloud computing service, Azure. 

Microsoft’s aggressive adoption and expansion of the technology have helped it leapfrog rivals in investors’ minds. Since Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI in January 2023, the stock has gained nearly 70%, adding more than $1.2 trillion to Microsoft’s market value.

Nadella has forged a close relationship with OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman and incorporated his startup’s technology into top Microsoft products. Investors have been bullish on the prospect that these AI tools—including an assistant Copilot that plugs into key Microsoft software like Word, Outlook and Teams—will become a major new revenue stream for the company.

“They have a huge head start owing to OpenAI and innovating quickly and moving faster than other enterprise software companies have been able to,” said Rishi Jaluria, an analyst at RBC Capital.

While the AI hype has boosted stocks across the tech sector, Microsoft has ridden the wave better than the rest. In 2023, Microsoft’s stock rose more than 55%, outpacing the Nasdaq Composite Index, which rose less than 45%.

Some investors worry there could be a bubble forming around the soaring prices of AI-driven stocks. It is still unclear how much new revenue the AI boom will add to any of the companies. Even for some of the biggest beneficiaries, it could take years before enterprises and individuals embrace AI tools at the scale the technology’s biggest proponents expect.

Microsoft’s early attempt to integrate AI into its products has been hit or miss. The AI chat added to its Bing search engine hasn’t done much to boost its market share against Google’s. Its GitHub Copilot product, which uses AI to speed up coding, has been popular.

The sheer size of Microsoft and peers like Apple means that tech stocks play an outsize role in the broader stock market’s performance. When the year began, the two tech companies accounted for 14% of the market-value weighted S&P 500, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices

Microsoft and Apple both now surpass the value of five of the 11 sectors within the S&P 500, according to Dow Jones Market Data, including consumer staples, energy, real estate, materials, and utilities.

Microsoft’s recent success is the latest capper for one of the oldest companies in tech that has ridden its tight ties with corporate customers to thrive through multiple waves of technological change.

Started in 1975, Microsoft has navigated the evolution from personal computers to the internet to mobile devices—some shifts better than others. Through it all, its operating systems are still in most of the world’s computers, and its workplace software remains a stalwart in companies across the globe.  

In recent years, as some tech companies have struggled with slowdowns, Microsoft has found ways to boost revenue. Its core businesses have generated enough cash to allow it to become one of the most acquisitive companies in tech. 

Not long ago, the Redmond, Wash., company was considered the stodgy old uncle of technology, not on par with the leading names in the industry. Despite its size, it was left out of the FAANG acronym some investors once used to describe what were considered the most dynamic names in tech: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google.

“There was a time when Microsoft was not part of FAANG and now Microsoft is absolutely in the magnificent seven,” said Soma Somasegar, a venture capitalist with Madrona Ventures and a former Microsoft executive.

The magnificent seven refers to the leaders in tech today: Google parent Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, Tesla and Microsoft.

Nadella, who is nearly a decade into the CEO job, has rapidly led the company across trillion-dollar valuation landmarks. It crossed the $1 trillion market capitalization mark in 2019 and $2 trillion two years later.

Under Nadella, Microsoft’s Azure cloud service has become the main engine of its growth, and the company’s stock rises and falls based on how well the division does. Today, it is the second-largest player in the sector behind Amazon’s Web Services.

The AI boom is expected to accelerate growth at Azure. Last quarter, customer spending on Microsoft’s AI services was responsible for 3 percentage points of Azure’s revenue growth.

微软周四成为有史以来第二家收盘时市值超过3万亿美元的公司，这一里程碑反映了投资者对这家历史最悠久的科技公司将引领AI革命的乐观看法。

过去十年中，微软的成功来自于该公司首席执行官纳德拉(Satya Nadella)的精明押注。近年来，他最大的赌注之一就是与一家未经检验的非营利性初创公司——生成式AI先驱OpenAI合作，并迅速将后者的技术融入微软最畅销的产品中。这一举动让微软在蓬勃发展的AI领域成为事实上的领导者，许多人认为AI将重塑科技行业格局。

Synovus Trust的投资组合经理Daniel Morgan说：“由于与OpenAI的关系，微软在我看来领先于Alphabet和Meta，很有可能成为AI领域的软件领导者。”Morgan持有微软股票。

微软的市值在周三午盘交易中首次升至3万亿美元左右，但收盘时跌破该关口。该公司股价周四收涨0.6%，至404.87美元。

微软在AI热潮推动下的崛起可能标志着“科技王权”迎来新一轮更迭。

去年6月，苹果公司(Apple)成为全球首家收盘时市值突破3万亿美元大关的公司，反映出iPhone的持久影响力和韧性。本月早些时候，微软曾短暂取代苹果，成为全球市值最高的上市公司。

苹果公司一度夺回了全球市值王宝座，但在周四收盘时，微软市值再次超过了苹果公司。微软目前的市值为3.009万亿美元，而苹果公司为3.002万亿美元。苹果股价今年迄今的表现逊于其他科技巨头，原因是人们对该公司的销售额及其在AI竞赛中的地位感到担忧。

2022年11月，随着ChatGPT的发布，AI热潮拉开帷幕。ChatGPT是由硅谷非营利初创公司OpenAI开发的聊天机器人，可使用大语言模型来写诗、制作电子邮件和生成计算机代码。

微软是OpenAI最大的投资者。在过去五年的多轮投资中，微软已同意向OpenAI投资130亿美元，以换取OpenAI营利业务49%的股份。通过这种合作关系，微软还可以提前使用OpenAI的最新模型，这些模型是在微软的云计算服务Azure上训练并托管的。

微软对该技术的积极采用和拓展帮助其在投资者心目中超越了竞争对手。自2023年1月微软对OpenAI投资数十亿美元以来，该公司股价已上涨近70%，微软市值由此增加逾1.2万亿美元。

纳德拉与OpenAI首席执行官阿尔特曼(Sam Altman)建立了密切关系，并将这家初创公司的技术整合到微软的顶级产品中。投资者一直看好这些AI工具，包括可插入Word、Outlook和Teams等微软关键软件的助手Copilot，认为AI工具将成为微软新的主要收入来源。

加拿大皇家银行资本市场(RBC Capital)分析师Rishi Jaluria说：“由于有OpenAI，再加上他们快速创新，并且比其他企业软件公司动作更快，他们已经有了很大的领先优势。”

虽然AI热潮推动了整个科技板块股票上涨，但微软在这波浪潮中的表现优于其他公司。2023年微软股价涨幅超过55%，力压同期涨幅不到45%的纳斯达克综合指数。

一些投资者担心，AI驱动的股票飙升可能会形成泡沫。目前还不清楚AI热潮会给这些科技公司带来多少新收入。即便对这波热潮里的一些最大受益者来说，企业和个人也可能需要数年时间才能以AI技术最大支持者所期望的规模来接受AI工具。

微软将AI整合到旗下产品中的早期尝试可谓一波三折。必应(Bing)搜索引擎中添加的AI聊天功能并未在微软与谷歌的市场份额之争中起到多大提升作用。微软的GitHub Copilot产品利用AI加快了编码速度，已经很受欢迎。

微软和苹果公司等科技业同行的庞大体量意味着，科技股在股市大盘的表现中拥有举足轻重的影响。据标普道琼斯指数公司(S&P Dow Jones Indices)的数据，今年伊始，微软和苹果公司在市值加权的标普500指数中总计占比达到14%。

根据道琼斯市场数据(Dow Jones Market Data)的数据，微软和苹果公司的价值已超过标普500指数11个板块中五个板块的市值，这五个板块是消费必需品、能源、房地产、材料和公用事业。

微软近期的成功是一家历史悠久的科技公司的最新成就，该公司凭借与企业客户的紧密联系，在多次技术变革浪潮中实现了发展壮大。

微软成立于1975年，经历了从个人电脑到互联网再到移动设备的演变过程，该公司对其中某些变革的应对比另一些要更好。在整个过程中，微软的操作系统仍在全球大多数电脑中使用，微软的办公软件仍是全球企业同类产品里的中坚力量。

近年来，当一些科技公司在增长放缓的困境中挣扎时，微软却找到了增加收入的方法。该公司的核心业务产生了足够的现金，使其成为科技界收购能力最强的公司之一。

不久前，总部位于华盛顿州雷德蒙德的微软还被认为是科技界的老顽固，无法与业内领先的企业相提并论。尽管规模庞大，但在一些投资者曾用来代指Facebook、亚马逊(Amazon)、苹果公司、Netflix和谷歌这几家科技界最具活力公司的首字母缩写词FAANG中，微软却被排除在外。

Madrona Ventures的风险投资人、微软前高管Soma Somasegar说：“曾几何时，微软还不是FAANG成员，而现在，微软绝对是美股‘七雄’的一员。”

美股“七雄”指的是当今科技领域的七家领军企业，分别是谷歌母公司Alphabet、亚马逊、苹果公司、Meta Platforms、英伟达(Nvidia)、特斯拉(Tesla)和微软。

纳德拉担任微软CEO近十年来，带领公司迅速跨越了多道万亿美元市值里程碑。该公司在2019年突破了1万亿美元市值大关，两年后又突破了2万亿美元。

在纳德拉的领导下，微软旗下云服务Azure已成为其增长的主要引擎，该公司股价随该部门表现的好坏涨跌。如今，它已成为云服务市场仅次于亚马逊Web Services的第二大供应商。

这股AI热潮有望加速Azure的增长步伐。上个季度，微软AI服务的客户支出为Azure收入增长贡献了三个百分点。