According to Bloomberg, Vole has either paused, delayed, or ditched development plans in the UK, Australia, Indonesia, and several US states, including Illinois, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. While the company still talks big—claiming it’s spending $80 billion this fiscal year on infrastructure—what’s happening on the ground paints a more cautious picture.

“Infrastructure planning is done years ahead,” a spokeVole told Bloomberg, trying to spin the pullbacks as “strategic flexibility.” But industry watchers aren’t convinced. TD Cowen analysts believe Microsoft is pulling out of approximately 2 gigawatts of new capacity, attributing this to “data centre oversupply” and a cooling of its partnership with OpenAI.

That rift may be more than just budget friction. Earlier this year, OpenAI teamed up with Oracle and SoftBank to launch its own $100 billion-plus infrastructure binge—potentially cutting Vole out of the loop.

The impact is rippling across the tech pond. Microsoft backed away from leasing plans with CoreWeave, according to its CEO Michael Intrator, who called the changes “localised” and linked them directly to OpenAI’s shift. CoreWeave shares sank more than eight per cent.

In the UK, Microsoft walked away from a 210-megawatt site in the Docklands, near Canary Wharf, leaving developer Ada Infrastructure to shop it around. The same slow walk has hit a North Dakota server farm deal with Applied Digital, which has since turned to Macquarie Asset Management to keep things moving.

Meanwhile, a chunk of Vole’s Indonesia campus build is on hold, and expansion plans in Wisconsin—where it has already invested $262 million, including $40 million in concrete alone—have stalled. Microsoft insists its $3.3 billion project there is still on track for next year.

Analysts say the retreat signals that hyperscalers, such as Microsoft, are learning hard lessons about construction bottlenecks, power constraints, and slower-than-anticipated AI service demand.

DatacenterHawk director Ed Socia said delays often stem from “labour, supply chain, and power delivery” issues.

Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai recently called out a “bubble” forming in data centre construction, echoing the worry that AI infrastructure is ballooning faster than real-world demand.

The broader concern? Microsoft’s tightening purse strings are rattling investors across the tech sector, particularly chipmakers like Nvidia, which thrive on data centre spending. The Vole’s shares are down nearly nine per cent this year, sliding 2.3 per cent to $373.32 as of Wednesday morning in New York.