To The Moon

The battle between Microsoft’s Azure and Meta’s ad business is quickly becoming one of the defining rivalries in tech—and this earnings season just poured gasoline on the fire. Microsoft’s 8% overnight jump was fueled by better-than-expected Azure growth, proving its cloud empire still has plenty of steam. Meanwhile, Meta’s blowout 11% surge came from topping sales projections and delivering a robust forecast, showing its ad machine is far from running out of gas, even as it doubles down on AI investment.

Both companies set fresh all-time highs, and their results highlight the new tech “PK” (player kill) battleground: AI-powered cloud versus AI-fueled ads. Microsoft’s edge is its infrastructure—the more the world builds with AI, the more Azure and its data centre ecosystem become indispensable. Meta, on the other hand, has weaponised AI to turbocharge ad targeting and engagement, driving revenue growth while spending big to stay at the front of the pack.

Should you hold both stocks? If you believe AI is the single biggest secular trend this decade, it’s hard not to. Each offers exposure to different pillars of the AI economy—cloud infrastructure and data for Microsoft, monetised user attention and social graph for Meta. Both have proven they can invest heavily in AI and translate it into real, top-line growth.

And yes, their AI arms race is great news for Nvidia. Every dollar Microsoft and Meta pour into AI infrastructure flows directly into GPUs and networking hardware, with Nvidia sitting squarely in the middle as the primary supplier. As long as these giants keep upping their AI capex, Nvidia’s revenue runway gets longer—and the AI hype cycle rolls on.

Bottom line: The competition between Microsoft’s Azure and Meta’s ad juggernaut isn’t a zero-sum game—investors can win on both sides. If you’re bullish on the AI supercycle, these are core holds, and the biggest winner on the sidelines might just be Nvidia.