Amazon.com second-quarter results have provided fresh support for the ongoing debate over massive AI infrastructure spending, with strong performance metrics. The cloud computing division AWS saw revenue surge 36.7% year-over-year to $42.2 billion, marking the fastest growth in 18 quarters. Overall company net sales reached $200.6 billion, up 20% year-over-year, while operating profit climbed 43% to $27.5 billion.
A pre-tax non-operating gain of $53.4 billion from the Anthropic investment pushed Amazon net profit for the quarter to $62.6 billion, with diluted earnings per share hitting $5.75. More critically, the company's AI and self-developed chip businesses now generate annualized revenue exceeding $25 billion each, with triple-digit growth rates. Despite high capital expenditures leading to negative free cash flow of $7.6 billion over the past twelve months, investor reaction was positive, with shares rising 8% in after-hours trading.
Morningstar analysts noted that AWS's accelerating growth clearly supports management's large-scale capital investment plans. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated that second-quarter AWS growth was the fastest in 18 quarters, with strong AI and chip business performance, and advertising revenue also recording 26% year-over-year growth. This performance indicates Wall Street is beginning to reassess the value-return logic of AI investments.
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