Wall Street's AI heavyweights added a combined half a trillion dollars in stock market value late on Wednesday after quarterly reports from Microsoft and Meta Platforms showed massive investments in the emerging technology were paying off.

It's seeing strong growth across all three of its business segments.

The S&P 500 closed slightly lower Thursday after briefly hitting a new intraday high, as strong earnings from Microsoft and Meta Platforms failed to offset broader market weakness. At 3:08 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 330 points,

Shares in the software giant rose 7.3 percent to $551 in after-hours trading as investors anticipate greater artificial intelligence offerings from the Azure cloud-computing business.

Technology giant Microsoft on Wednesday said its profit soared above expectations in the recently ended quarter, driven by its cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) units.

Microsoft (MSFT) is surging after strong fiscal fourth-quarter results, hitting record highs and surpassing the $4 trillion market cap