Microsoft forecast on Wednesday a record $30 billion in capital spending for the current fiscal first quarter, after booming sales in its Azure cloud computing business showcased the growing returns on its massive bets on artificial intelligence.

Microsoft significantly exceeded earnings expectations for the June quarter and disclosed its standalone annual Azure revenue for the first time — providing new clarity into how it stacks up against Amazon and Google in the cloud.

Microsoft Corp. said it will spend more than $30 billion in the current quarter to build out the data centers powering its artificial intelligence services.Investors, applauding accelerating growth in the company’s cloud-computing unit,