Lisbon, Nov. 11, 2025 (Lusa) - Microsoft president Brad Smith told Lusa on Tuesday that the technology company's challenge "is not to reduce the number of employees", but to "adapt the type of jobs" to those that are needed.

"Last year, we had to reduce the number of employees in one area so that we could increase the number of employees in another," the president of the US technology company told Lusa after his speech at the Web Summit in Lisbon.

Smith believes that the future will involve "changing jobs". "This allows us to invest more in training our own people, so that people can develop the skills to move from one job to another," he said.

"I believe we can work with more people to help them move in this way," he added.

He also said that it is necessary to "make this the new normal", referring to the adaptation of competences.

Microsoft announced today that it will install 12,600 state-of-the-art NVIDIA GPUs (graphics processing units) in Sines and that the initiative represents Microsoft's largest investment in Portugal and the largest data centre deal ever made in the country, according to a statement.

'The technology company will invest more than $10 billion from the beginning of 2026,' reads the document.

The infrastructure will support "advanced AI workloads in various sectors" and is in line with Microsoft's Digital Commitment for Europe, which plans to double data centre capacity in 16 European countries by 2027.

This edition of the Web Summit, which runs until 13 November, is expected to attract more than 70,000 participants, more than 2,500 startups showcasing their products and services, and more than 1,000 investors.

The Web Summit began in Lisbon in 2016 and is to continue until 2028.

AJR/ADB // ADB.

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