Amazon promises to turn AWS into a $1 trillion revenue business, but first — record spending

The trillion-dollar goal and the price of the question

At Amazon's quarterly earnings call on October 29, company chief Andy Jassy once again said he believes AWS is on its way to becoming a business with $1 trillion in annual revenue. This was reported by TechCrunch.

Spending is rising, investors are nervous

Before the cloud reaches that goal, the company will have to ramp up infrastructure spending. Jassy confirmed expectations for 2026 capital expenditures of roughly $220 billion — most of it going to AWS — and promised a subject of investor concern, and analysts on the call repeatedly pressed Jassy to explain the rationale for the spending and the expected returns. The market reaction was negative: in after-hours trading on Thursday, the shares fell by about 6%.

Growth forecast and industry context

According to Jassy, AWS is a business with an annualized revenue run rate of $184 billion, and he allows for growth the sixth consecutive quarter of sustained growth, notes Bloomberg. Jassy called the AI boom

Not just Amazon

The AI boom has been a mixed blessing for the cloud industry: the services it runs on rely on cloud infrastructure, so all major providers are spending heavily and earning heavily at the same time. Microsoft, for example, reported a new record revenue growth — largely thanks to its cloud business — and also spent significant sums on infrastructure. For readers, this means that record capex and record cloud revenue go hand in hand: Amazon has merely put numbers on what is already happening at its main competitor ($220 billion in 2026 and more in 2027).