Microsoft Corp. shares experienced their largest drop in two years after the company projected slower growth in its cloud revenue for the upcoming quarter. This forecast highlights Microsoft’s challenges in scaling its data centers quickly enough to meet the increasing demand for artificial intelligence services. Specifically, revenue from its Azure cloud-computing business is expected to rise between 31% and 32% in the current period, following a 34% increase in the previous quarter, adjusted for currency fluctuations. This marks a slight decrease in growth compared to the 35% growth rate observed in the quarter before that. The trend indicates a slowdown in Azure’s growth momentum, which has impacted investor confidence and led to a notable decline in Microsoft’s stock value. The company’s struggle to align its data center expansion with market demand underscored the critical nature of infrastructure scalability in maintaining robust growth in cloud services.