02/06/2026, 06:5802/06/2026, 06:58
Amazon is outperforming its tech rivals when it comes to investments: The retail giant plans to invest around $200 billion in AI, chips, robotics and satellites this year. Difficult for investors to digest. The share temporarily fell by eight percent in after-hours trading.
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.Image: keystone
According to Amazon boss Andy Jassy, the majority of the money will go to expanding the AI infrastructure. The group expects a profitable investment in the long term. Amazon is strong in the business of computing power and storage from the computer cloud – and is therefore also benefiting from the boom in artificial intelligence. Sales at the AWS cloud division grew 24 percent year-on-year to $35.6 billion in the last quarter, exceeding analysts’ average expectations.
AI race between the tech giants
Other tech companies are also investing heavily in expanding their AI capacities. Just the day before, Google parent company Alphabet announced capital investments of between 175 and 185 billion dollars for the current year. The Facebook group Meta is planning for 115 to 135 billion dollars. At the same time, it is still unclear whether the huge investments in AI technology and the infrastructure can even be earned back.
Amazon’s spending offensive is being financed by both the cloud division and the well-running retail business. In the last quarter, group sales grew by 14 percent to $213.4 billion. The bottom line was a profit of $21.2 billion. Last year it was $20 billion.
The profit was depressed by special costs of $1.1 billion, including for the settlement of a tax dispute in Italy. The closure of grocery stores under the Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go brands in the USA resulted in a loss of $610 million.
AI and robots are changing Amazon
Amazon itself is also changing. The group is cutting around 30,000 office jobs in two waves – also with reference to the change caused by artificial intelligence. The cuts resulted in a $730 million charge for severance pay last quarter.
There will always be “a lot” of people employed in the distribution centers – but robotics will relieve them of monotonous tasks, said Jassy. This increases productivity and also makes work safer for people.
Jassy is focusing on expanding the product range on the trading platform – including everyday items. “When you can order more and more from Amazon, Amazon is the first thing you think of,” he argued. This has also recently been shown in the sale of fresh food in the USA. (dab/sda/dpa)