Microsoft's Australian data centre arm books $326m profit after prior-year loss
Microsoft Datacentre (Australia) Pty Limited made a $326 million profit in the year to 30 June 2026, compared with a $5.6 million loss a year earlier, as AI demand lifted returns on its local spending.
The Microsoft entity that runs its Australian data centres made a profit of $326 million in the year to 30 June 2026, after losing $5.6 million the year before. Microsoft Datacentre (Australia) Pty Limited oversees the company's expanding local facilities.
The profit arrives while Microsoft pays for new buildings, servers and related infrastructure. The company has pledged $25 billion over three years to lift its Australian data centre and AI capacity, a commitment the report calls the biggest by any global technology company in the country. An earlier $5 billion investment had already added sites and raised national capacity.
The report attributed the earlier loss to infrastructure and power costs rising faster than revenue during a fast expansion. It said those pressures appear to have eased as AI workloads improve utilisation and pricing power, and that the result reflects rising demand for cloud and AI computing.
Globally, Microsoft has been putting tens of billions of dollars into property, equipment and chips each quarter to support growth in its Azure cloud. The report said the Australian result suggests some of that spending is starting to show clearer financial returns in a key regional market.
The report noted that the profit does not resolve the wider debate in Australia about the energy, planning and tax effects of large data centre builds. Questions about future power demand, water use and the tax actually paid by foreign-owned operators remain open.