Amazon's stock jumped nearly 10% after reporting strong second-quarter earnings, with AWS cloud revenue up 37% year over year to $42 billion（約6.7兆円）.
The company is aggressively spending on infrastructure—raising its 2026 capex forecast to $220 billion（約35兆円） and investing $173 billion（約28兆円） in property and equipment this fiscal year—and investors are backing the bet because cloud revenue growth justifies the capital outlay.
This confidence stands in contrast to Meta, which fell 8% despite similar spending levels, because Meta lacks a revenue stream to offset its capex.
What happened
Amazon reported second-quarter net sales up 20%, with AWS cloud revenue rising 37% year over year to $42 billion（約6.7兆円） for the quarter. The company raised its 2026 capex forecast from $200 billion（約32兆円） to $220 billion（約35兆円） and spent $173 billion（約28兆円） on property and equipment in the fiscal year ended June 30, up from $107.65 billion（約17兆円） the prior year. Its stock rose nearly 10% in after-hours trading.
Why it matters
Unlike typical companies facing investor pressure to cut costs, Amazon is being rewarded for aggressive infrastructure investment because AWS revenue growth shows demand is justifying the supply build-out. CEO Andy Jassy noted that AWS and Amazon Bedrock can succeed without owning a frontier AI model, since no single model will dominate. This contrasts sharply with Meta, which saw its stock fall 8% after earnings this week despite similar capex levels, because it lacks a clear revenue source to offset spending.
What to watch
Amazon's first period of negative free cash flow this year—ending the quarter with $7.6 billion（約1.2兆円） less cash than 12 months prior—signals the company is dipping into reserves to fund expansion. The multi-year gap between data center construction and revenue generation means investor confidence hinges on whether AWS demand continues to track capex growth.
Amazon reported second-quarter earnings that exceeded expectations, with net sales rising 20% and AWS cloud revenue emerging as a standout performer. AWS revenue climbed 37% year over year, reaching $42 billion（約6.7兆円） for the quarter. This strong cloud showing sent Amazon's stock up nearly 10% in after-hours trading on Thursday and signaled to investors that the company's aggressive infrastructure investment is justified by growing demand.
The scale of Amazon's capital expenditure is striking. For the fiscal year ended June 30, the company spent $173 billion（約28兆円） on property and equipment—a category encompassing GPUs, natural gas turbines, and land—up from $107.65 billion（約17兆円） the prior year. Looking ahead, Amazon raised its 2026 capex forecast from $200 billion（約32兆円） to $220 billion（約35兆円）, even as the company has begun drawing down cash reserves to help cover the cost. The quarter ended with $7.6 billion（約1.2兆円） less cash than it had 12 months earlier, marking the company's first period of negative free cash flow this year. Under typical circumstances, such ballooning expenses would concern investors, but Amazon's revenue engine tells a different story: AWS growth demonstrates that demand is materializing alongside the supply build-out, which investors view as reassuring given the years-long time lag between data center construction and revenue generation.
Beyond large data centers, Amazon is making strategic long-term bets on proprietary chips—the Trainium TPU and the Arm-based Graviton processor—investments that don't appear in capex figures but can meaningfully improve cloud business margins. During the Q2 earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy argued that AWS and Amazon Bedrock can operate as wildly successful businesses without owning their own frontier AI model, because "there's not going to be a single model to rule them all." This positioning suggests Amazon is betting on providing the infrastructure layer rather than competing for dominance in foundational models.
Amazon's experience diverges starkly from Meta's. Microsoft and Google also saw their shares rise after reporting strong cloud revenue, reflecting broad investor appetite for infrastructure providers with clear revenue sources. Meta, by contrast, reported quarterly earnings this week accompanied by an 8% stock decline. Investors focused on Meta's cash flow crunch and continued spending despite the absence of a clear revenue stream offsetting the capex. The contrast highlights that in the current AI market, having infrastructure and spending alone is insufficient—investors demand visible revenue generation to justify the capital outlay.
The market's response to Amazon versus Meta illustrates a critical divide in how investors evaluate AI infrastructure spending. For Amazon, the calculus is straightforward: AWS is generating substantial and accelerating revenue (up 37% year over year), which provides concrete justification for the $173 billion（約28兆円） fiscal-year capex and the raised $220 billion（約35兆円） 2026 forecast. Jassy's statement that AWS and Amazon Bedrock can succeed without owning a frontier AI model—because "there's not going to be a single model to rule them all"—signals that Amazon's revenue engine is not dependent on proprietary model dominance but on providing compute capacity that multiple models can run on. This positions the company as cloud infrastructure provider rather than pure AI play, a distinction investors appear to value.
Meta's contrasting experience reveals that capex alone is not sufficient to win investor confidence. Despite comparable infrastructure ambitions, Meta's stock fell 8% because investors see spending without an offsetting revenue stream. The $7.6 billion（約1.2兆円） decline in Amazon's cash reserves over the past 12 months and its first period of negative free cash flow in 2024 could have triggered similar skepticism, but AWS growth and margin trajectory expectations have insulated the company. The data-center-to-revenue lag—which Jassy frames as a design feature of AWS's model—actually reinforces investor confidence, because present spending on capacity can be monetized years later as demand materializes. This temporal mismatch works in Amazon's favor precisely because its cloud business has a track record of converting infrastructure into revenue, whereas Meta's capex spending remains speculative from an investor perspective.
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