Microsoft Fields Two AI Bets as Stock Tumbles: An IPO Filing and a Nvidia-Backed PC Push

Microsoft shares fall 16% YTD to €338, dragged by AI spending and hardware slump. Cloud surges 40%, but stock below key averages. OpenAI IPO and Nvidia AI PCs may shift sentiment.

Microsoft’s shares have lost roughly 16% since the start of the year, a slide that leaves the software giant trading near €338 – almost 30% below its October 2025 peak of over €478. The decline persists even as the company’s cloud business delivers stand-out growth, highlighting the market’s unease with the cost of building out artificial intelligence infrastructure and a hardware segment that continues to drag.

Azure revenue surged 40% in the quarter ended March 2026, helping push total quarterly sales to $82.9 billion, an 18% year-on-year increase. Yet the hardware division, which includes Windows licenses and devices, shrank 2%. To reverse that, Microsoft is teaming up with Nvidia. At the Computex trade fair, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang unveiled the “RTX Spark,” a compact AI superchip developed with MediaTek and Microsoft. The chip will power a new wave of laptops and desktop PCs, including Microsoft’s own Surface Laptop Ultra, which promises up to 128 GB of RAM and substantial on-device computing for personal AI assistants. ASUS, Dell and Lenovo are also lining up with compatible machines, due to ship this autumn.

On the corporate AI front, OpenAI took a major step toward the public markets. The ChatGPT developer confidentially filed an S-1 with the SEC on June 8, 2026, giving itself the flexibility to list within the next year. For Microsoft, which has invested heavily in the startup, the IPO could finally assign a clear market value to a stake that has so far been opaque. According to a partnership update on April 27, Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud provider, with OpenAI products running preferentially on Azure. It also holds a license to OpenAI’s technology through 2032 – albeit no longer exclusive – and receives revenue-sharing payments until 2030, subject to a cap.

The financial drag from the OpenAI tie-up is easing. In the third quarter of Microsoft’s fiscal 2026, the investment weighed on net income by $14 million, a sharp improvement from a $583 million hit in the same period a year earlier. That gives investors a tangible data point for how the relationship is evolving, but the stock’s technical picture remains weak. The shares trade below both their 50-day moving average of €352.85 and their 200-day line near €389. The relative strength index stands at 38.5, indicating a sluggish market without being oversold.

What could shift sentiment? A completed IPO would bring detailed financials in the S-1 prospectus, potentially offering the transparency that strategic announcements have not. Meanwhile, the Nvidia-powered PC push faces a skeptical audience. The market wants to see hard evidence that the new wave of AI laptops can lift “More Personal Computing” revenue. If the next quarterly report fails to show a hardware turnaround, Computex’s glitzy unveilings risk being dismissed as little more than marketing.