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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. The EU Commission launched an investigation into Amazon and Microsoft last week. The Commission is assessing whether the American companies should be considered gatekeepers as part of the Digital Markets Act and a debate whether the EU might in fact be stifling innovation in the technology sector.
It comes as Microsoft celebrates 40 years and 40 billion euro investment in this country. But even amid this boom in investment, the technology giants have openly expressed concern that we may be looking at an AI bubble which could burst and bring on a recession.
My next guest, Catherine Doyle, runs Microsoft here in Ireland, which employs 6,400 people, including LinkedIn, as well as its huge cloud business. Good morning, Catherine. Good morning, Joe. You've spent 40 billion euros over the last 40 years. I presume it's not a billion a year. What have you spent it on?
So the 40 billion that we're announcing today is actually over the last 10 years.
Oh.
And it's our local investment and also the broader impact on the Irish economy. So it's a mix of the two.
Yeah. I mean, because you don't physically make stuff anymore, what has the investment gone on? Has it gone on training? Has it gone on investment in data centres? What's the money gone on?
So I guess we do still make stuff. Software has to be developed with a large R&D and engineering presence. So that would be a key part of what we have spent the money on. We've also got our financial and legal services here in Ireland as well. So the broader campus, the job investment, etc. would make up part of that.
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Chapter 2: What major investment has Microsoft made in Ireland over the past 40 years?
On top of that, we've supported 900 new start-ups. 500 partners. We've done 137 million in philanthropy, 120 million in donations, 940,000 hours of community and volunteering hours services. And the investment would span across people, research and development, engineering, innovation, community projects and, you know, the larger, wider economic impact projects.
And you're also announcing a new investment of €4.5 million in developing AI skills for everyone. How will that work?
Chapter 3: What concerns exist about a potential AI bubble?
So that's really important, Joe, because as we step into this space, Ireland is doing really well globally and in Europe, which is really good for us to hear.
Last year, our Work Trend Index showed that we were slightly behind other European countries, where earlier this year it showed us that we were moving up into a more leading position, showing that Ireland isn't necessarily market leading with this new technology, but we are very much fast followers.
So recently Microsoft launched a diffusion report which showed the AI diffusion globally and Ireland ranked fourth.
In the world? In the world. A lot of people would be surprised at that.
Yeah, actually, we were delighted to see that because it's exactly... So what is AI diffusion? It's the amount or the number of people by populace using AI in the economy broadly.
Okay, so that could range from checking your Microsoft Copilot to predicting your next Netflix movie?
Yeah, absolutely. It could be anything at all. But the bottom line is we have a critical mass of people right now in our economy, citizens using AI, which bodes really well for our familiarity with the technology as we step into this space. It's really good to see that we're taking that step already.
You're not worried about an AI bubble, are you? Because there's a lot of money being spent by giant companies, including Microsoft Worldwide. You guys are spending $250 billion on data center investment as well. And there is a genuine concern that stocks related to AI have been overbought and it could all come tumbling down.
So, look, I can't comment on global stocks or what might happen there. But from a bubble point of view, I don't think so. So if we think about what AI is versus what other technologies were, if we look at things like the Internet, we had the Internet for roughly about, what, between six and eight years before we figured out how to commercialize it.
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Chapter 4: How does Microsoft plan to invest in AI skills development?
I think, look, digital infrastructure is a very necessary part of building any economy. It's necessary to build innovation and to step into this new world of AI. So it's something we need to continue with. And we need to be very mindful that we do that as sustainable as humanly possible.
Corporation tax revenues are dominated by a handful, mostly American companies. We don't know exactly who it is, but it may include your business. Are you worried as an Irish woman about the dependency on a very small number of mostly American companies?
I think Ireland has done really well over the last 30 years to turn our economy around. I mean, if we think about when Microsoft started 40 years ago in 1985 in Ireland, remember at that point it was a 10-year-old company. We had 17% unemployment.
I saw a lovely picture of Bill Gates at the opening exactly 40 years ago. A lovely picture.
Yeah, he was in Sandiford opening the office, which was less than 100 people and did localisation services. So I think we have done a phenomenal job building our economy over the last 30 years. And using foreign direct investment to underpin that, I think, was a very clever way for us to actually step into that space.
And it has resulted in putting us now fourth in the world for the use of AI and AI diffusion, which sets us up really well, you know, for the next 40 years. which I think is fantastic.
I think leaning in to skilling our SME sector and ensuring that the, you know, the startup community, et cetera, is supported in Ireland to drive that and continue to drive that level of innovation natively out of the country is really important.
Catherine, thank you so much. And here's to another 40 years of Microsoft investment and potentially more than 40 billion euro investment. That's Catherine Doyle, the general manager of Microsoft Ireland. Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk.
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