Microsoft’s Azure posts slowdown in growth, testing investors’ patience

Microsoft Corp.’s Azure cloud-computing service posted a slowdown in quarterly growth, testing the patience of investors anxious to see a payoff from huge investments in artificial intelligence products.

Revenue from Azure, Microsoft’s main growth engine in recent years, rose 29 per cent in the fiscal fourth quarter, compared with a 31 per cent jump in the previous period. About 8 percentage points of the increase in the recent period was attributable to AI, up from 7 percentage points in the prior quarter.