Microsoft’s $5 Billion Data Center Delay, DigitalOcean CEO on AI Infrastructure Boom

Microsoft Trims $5bn Data Center Spend as IREN Slips

Guest interviews

• Paddy Srinivasan, CEO of DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean had its best quarter in over ten years, with 680,000 paying customers and none above high single digits of concentration, and guided to 60% plus growth next year at billion-plus scale while profitable. He rejects the neo cloud label, saying DigitalOcean makes $18m per megawatt across its fleet by monetizing software such as data services and agent sandboxes. He says most 2027 capacity sits in already energized, permitted campuses run by tier one providers, and expects more routing between frontier and open-weight models.
• Aaron Holmes, Microsoft reporter at The Information. Microsoft cut about $5bn from planned capital spending after a third party was late delivering GPUs, and Holmes found one of them is IREN, whose Texas campus slipped. The IREN deal is roughly $10bn over five years, about $1.8bn a year once online, and Microsoft pays only once it is a tenant. He says the delays hurt smaller clouds more because they carry debt, and expects permitting and power to get harder after the midterms.
• Yueqi Yang, crypto reporter at The Information. Big banks are blocking third-party agents. Dimon said on JPMorgan's earnings call the bank will block all of them, and Wells Fargo and Bank of America made customers responsible for agents' actions. Fintech-friendly banks such as Lead Bank and Column instead give agents scoped API access, through Stripe virtual cards and FDIC-insured wallets at Column, and she notes regulators have said little.

News

• Microsoft cuts $5bn capex as IREN slips. Microsoft cut planned quarterly capital spending by about $5bn after a third party was late providing GPUs, as disclosed in earnings. Aaron Holmes found one of them is IREN, whose Texas campus slipped.
• Microsoft exits Nscale campus over power. Nscale learned its data center near London would not get power until at least 2030, so Microsoft pulled out of the campus. Reports say Microsoft also declined to commit more spending at Nscale's Texas site.
• Big banks block third-party AI agents. Dimon said on JPMorgan's earnings call the bank will block all third-party agents, and Wells Fargo and Bank of America changed terms so customers answer for agents' actions. Banks cite rogue agents and unclear liability.
• Fintech banks open accounts to AI agents. Lead Bank and Column extend scoped API access to agents, with Stripe's single-use virtual cards carrying spending limits and Column holding FDIC-insured agent wallets. Increase Bank plans isolated accounts so an agent cannot touch the rest of a customer's money.
• Akash Pasricha says neo cloud stocks have been hit hard over the past two weeks, first on debt concerns and then the election result, with DigitalOcean down about 17% despite strong earnings.