Microsoft has officially announced that it will be terminating up to 9,000 jobs, marking the latest round of job cuts for the tech giant this year.
The company has not specified which departments will be affected, but reports suggest that its Xbox gaming division will be impacted.
As part of its plans to heavily invest in artificial intelligence (AI), Microsoft is currently spending $80 billion on large data centers to train AI models.
A spokesperson for the company told the BBC: “We are continuously making organizational changes in order to position the company for success in a rapidly changing market.”
The job cuts would amount to 4% of Microsoft’s global workforce of 228,000 employees.
This marks the fourth round of layoffs for Microsoft in 2025, with the most recent one in May resulting in the elimination of 6,000 roles.
According to a database maintained by the state of Washington, over 800 of the job cuts will be concentrated in Redmond and Bellevue, two major hubs for Microsoft in its home state.
In recent years, Microsoft, along with other major tech companies, has shifted its focus towards the development of AI, investing in data centers and chips.
Last year, the company hired British AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman to lead its new Microsoft AI division.
In a recent interview with the BBC, a top Microsoft executive stated that the next 50 years will be “fundamentally defined by artificial intelligence,” changing the way we work and interact with each other.
Microsoft is also a major investor and shareholder in OpenAI, the company behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT, although there have been reports of tension between the two companies in recent months.
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