Jassy: AWS to hit $1T revenue as capex nears $220 billion

Amazon's earnings call on Thursday put a number on the tension between ambition and spending. Jassy has said before that he believes AWS can be a trillion-dollar revenue business, and he repeated that on the call, adding a specific timeline: five to 10 years. He paired it with a capex forecast of approximately $220 billion for 2026, the majority for AWS, and said the company expects to spend meaningfully more in 2027.

The spending plan drew repeated questions from Wall Street analysts, who asked Jassy to explain the outlay, the signals that growth will really come, and the profit margins expected. Jassy framed the AI boom as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity worth a big financial commitment now, and pointed to AWS revenue rising 39% from the year-ago quarter, steady growth for the sixth straight quarter, as evidence the strategy is working. He forecast growth north of 40% in each of 2027 and 2028.

Investors, however, remained concerned, and Amazon shares were down about 6% in after-market trading on Thursday. The reaction fits a broader pattern in the cloud industry, where providers are spending big on AI infrastructure while also earning big from it. Microsoft, for instance, just posted yet more record-breaking revenue growth, driven largely by its cloud business, and it too has spent a bundle.