California : Amazon announced that it will add $20 billion to its spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure this year, amid strong demand for computing capacity and rising memory chip prices.
The company increased its capital expenditure forecast to $220 billion from $200 billion previously, noting the level of investment may still not be sufficient to meet growing demand for cloud computing services, with the supply-demand gap expected to persist through 2027.
The announcement came after Amazon reported strong second-quarter financial results, driven by accelerating growth at its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), where revenue increased 37% year on year, marking its fastest growth in 18 quarters.
Group revenue rose 20% to $200.6 billion, while net profit surged to about $62.65 billion from $18.1 billion in the same period last year.
Despite issuing cautious sales guidance for the current quarter, Amazon’s shares rose in after-hours trading as investors assessed the returns on the company’s substantial investments in artificial intelligence, robotics and semiconductors.
