Microsoft said Friday that it plans to invest $80 billion in artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled data centers this year.

The tech giant said its significant infrastructure investments will "serve as the essential foundation of AI innovation and use" and that the new data centers will be used to "train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications around the world."

More than 50% of this major investment, Microsoft said, will be used for projects in the United States, "reflecting our commitment to this country and our confidence in the American economy."

However, Microsoft said that the investment strategy's success relies on an ecosystem that includes construction companies, material suppliers and skilled trades such as electricians and pipefitters, as well as the company's competitors, chip suppliers, applications companies, systems integrators, service providers and software developers.

"Together, all these groups have enabled the technology sector to become an economic backbone for the United States and the world," the company said.

Microsoft currently has multiple U.S. data centers planned or under construction, which include projects in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Washington state and Wisconsin. The company did not reveal any additional sites Friday.

By 2030, approximately 70% of current data center demand, according to research and consultancy firm McKinsey & Company, will be driven by AI, which needs more computational power and power density to handle its workloads.

According to a 2024 report from Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query uses 10 times the electricity required to run a Google search.

To avoid a supply deficit, McKinsey said, the industry would have to produce the total data center capacity that has been built since 2000 in less than a quarter of the time.