By Aditya Soni and Deborah Mary Sophia (Reuters) -Days after Chinese upstart DeepSeek revealed a breakthrough in cheap AI computing that shook the U.S. technology industry, the chief executives of Microsoft and Meta defended massive spending that they said was key to staying competitive in the new field.

The tech giants on Wednesday talked up their AI strategies and said they are sticking with ambitious investments in the technology despite the investor panic this week over the ri

Key tech stocks were a mixed bag in early trading Thursday after executives at Meta and Microsoft said they plan to keep pouring billions of dollars into AI – despite lingering anxiety over the launch of China-based DeepSeek’s AI model.

Microsoft said its cloud-computing business will continue to grow slowly in the current quarter as the company struggles to build enough data centers to handle demand for its artificial intelligence products.

Microsoft reported slower-than-expected growth in its crucial Azure cloud business on Wednesday despite beating estimates for overall quarterly revenue, sending its shares down 4% in extended trading.

Microsoft MSFT.O has made Chinese startup DeepSeek's R1 artificial intelligence model available on its Azure cloud computing platform and GitHub tool for developers, the U.S. company said on Wednesday.