Amazon just crossed $3 trillion in market value for the very first time, and it happened fast. The company’s stock jumped around 5% in a single day, which is a huge move for a company this size, and it all came right after Amazon posted a really strong earnings report.
So what exactly is driving this? A big part of it comes down to Amazon’s cloud computing business, known as AWS. This past quarter, AWS brought in $42.2 billion in revenue, which was way more than what experts on Wall Street had predicted. Even better for Amazon, this was actually the fastest growth AWS has seen in more than four years.
Why does cloud computing matter so much right now? Because of AI. As more and more companies build and run artificial intelligence tools, they need powerful servers and storage to make all of that work behind the scenes. Amazon happens to be one of the biggest cloud providers in the world, so as AI demand keeps growing, so does the money flowing into AWS.
During the earnings call, Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, shared something that got a lot of attention. He said that even though the company plans to spend $220 billion this year just on building out capacity, it still won’t be enough to meet all the demand they’re seeing. He also said the same problem will likely continue into 2027, and based on what he’s seeing already, demand for 2028 looks even bigger.
Basically, Amazon can’t build data centers fast enough to keep up with how much companies want to use their cloud services, especially for AI-related work.
With this new milestone, Amazon now joins an extremely small group of companies that have ever been worth more than $3 trillion. Only four other companies have done it before: Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet, which is Google’s parent company. Out of all of them, Nvidia is currently the most valuable company in the entire world, sitting close to $5 trillion.
It’s worth pointing out how fast Amazon has grown too. The company only hit the $2 trillion mark back in 2024, so crossing $3 trillion took just a little over two years. That’s a pretty quick jump for a company that’s been around for decades already.
Investors seem confident that this growth isn’t slowing down anytime soon. A lot of analysts on Wall Street have been raising their ratings on Amazon stock, saying the money being spent on AI infrastructure is finally starting to pay off in a big way.
Bottom line: Amazon’s cloud and AI business is turning into its biggest growth engine, and Wall Street is clearly betting that this is just the beginning.
(Sources: CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg)
