Microsoft has ceased its planned data center projects requiring 2 gigawatts of electricity in the U.S. and Europe in the past half-year due to an excess of supply compared to its current demand projections, as reported by TD Cowen analysts. The company has also postponed or called off existing data center leases in these areas recently. The decision to halt new capacity leasing was mainly driven by Microsoft's choice not to accommodate additional workloads from OpenAI's ChatGPT. There is growing doubt among investors regarding the significant artificial intelligence expenditures by U.S. technology companies, particularly with the slow returns and the emergence of Chinese startup DeepSeek offering AI technology at a lower cost than Western competitors. TD Cowen's analysis indicates that Google is now stepping in to fill the void left by Microsoft in global markets, while Meta Platforms is doing the same in the U.S. Microsoft, which intends to invest more than $80 billion in AI and cloud resources this fiscal year, has not yet responded to requests for comment. Earlier this year, TD Cowen analysts had mentioned that Microsoft had abandoned leases for "a few hundred megawatts" of capacity with a minimum of two private data center operators.