Amazon Q4: US$200bn Spend Fuels AWS and AI Expansion

Amazon has unveiled plans to invest approximately US$200bn in capital expenditure, with the majority directed towards Amazon Web Services (AWS), as the company reported significant financial growth in Q4 2025.

The announcement came as CEO Andy Jassy outlined the company's aggressive expansion in AI infrastructure during the company's earnings call.

The financial results showed net income increased to US$77.7bn in 2025, compared with US$59.2bn in 2024.

Operating income reached US$80bn in 2025, up from US$63.8bn in 2024. Net sales grew 12% to US$716.9bn, with AWS segment sales demonstrating particular strength, increasing 20% year-over-year to US$128.7bn.

The cloud computing division emerged as a key driver of Amazon's financial performance, with AWS representing a substantial portion of the planned capital expenditure. According to Andy, the investment priorities will focus on AI chips, robotics and low orbit satellites.

"Customers really want AWS core for AI workloads, and we are monetising capacity as fast as we can install it," Andy said during the earnings call.

He added: "We have deep experience understanding demand signals in the AWS business and then turning that capacity into a strong return on invested capital. We are confident this will be the case here as well."

The AWS division recorded 24% growth, marking what the CEO described as the fastest growth in 13 quarters. Throughout 2025, Amazon secured new AWS agreements with major corporate clients including OpenAI, Visa, the NBA, BlackRock, Perplexity, Lyft, United Airlines, DoorDash, Salesforce, US Air Force, Adobe, Thomson Reuters, AT&T, S&P Global, London Stock Exchange, Accenture, Indeed and HSBC.

Revenue performance across segments

The company's advertising business grew 22%, while the Stores segment showed growth across both North America and International operations. Amazon's chips business demonstrated triple-digit percentage growth year-over-year, according to the earnings report.

"AWS growing 24% (our fastest growth in 13 quarters), Advertising growing 22%, Stores growing briskly across North America and International, our chips business growing triple digit percentages year-over-year, this growth is happening because we're continuing to innovate at a rapid rate, and identify and knock down customer problems," Andy said in the report.

The exec positioned AI as a long-term revenue opportunity for the company. "I passionately believe that every customer experience that we know of today is going to be reinvented," Andy said.

He added: "With AI, there are gonna be a whole bunch of customer experiences none of us ever imagined that are gonna become the norms of how we all operate every day and what we use."

Industry investment patterns

Amazon's capital expenditure plans align with broader industry trends, as technology companies increase spending on AI infrastructure. Meta reported capital expenditure expectations ranging between US$115bn and US$135bn for 2026, nearly double the US$72.2bn spent in 2025.

The company's earnings call on 28 January showed record-breaking holiday demand contributed to business performance, with Meta's share price rising from 6% to 10% in extended trading following the announcement.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: "We had a strong business performance in 2025. Our business also performed very well thanks to record-breaking holiday demand and AI-driven performance gains."

He added: "We are now seeing a major AI acceleration. I expect 2026 to be a year where this wave accelerates even further."

Google has similarly announced increased investment in AI infrastructure and AI-native cloud offerings under CEO Sundar Pichai.