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Microsoft (US:MSFT), Amazon (US:AMZN) and Alphabet (US:GOOGL) may be the market's darlings, but right nowthe only thing investors really careabout is their cloud computing performance. Microsoft and Alphabet both reported their recent third-quarter results on the same day, and both beat consensus earnings expectations. However, Microsofts share price rose 4 per cent and Alphabets fell 9 per cent.

The reason? Microsofts earnings beat was built on the back of cloud computing while Alphabets was due to a recovery in its advertising market.

Microsofts cloud computing division, Azure, grew 29 per cent year on year in the three months to September, exceeding market expectations of 26 per cent. This extra growth came from artificial intelligence (AI), with chief financial officer Amy Hood confirming that roughly three percentage points came from AI services. While the trends from [the] prior quarter continued, growth was ahead of expectations, primarily driven by increased graphics processing unit (GPU) capacity and better-than-expected GPU utilisation of our AI services, said Hood.

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Cloud computing growth is the new benchmark - Investors Chronicle