Amazon, Built by Retail, Invests in Its AI Future
Amazon built a $2 trillion company through years of aggressive spending on its retail and logistics businesses. Its future gains will likely be determined by the billions designated to fund its artificial-intelligence push.Amazon is planning to spend more than $100 billion over the next decade on data centers, an impressive level of investment even for a company known for its spending ways. The Seattle company is now devoting more investment money to its cloud computing and AI infrastructure than to its sprawling network of e-commerce warehouses.Amazon's spending on data-center capital expenses, including leases, compared with total capital expenditures hit a decade-high last year of 53%, according to market-research firm Dell'Oro Group. Amazon said it expects AWS infrastructure spending to remain high this year, and the company has announced many AWS investments in recent months.Amazon's shift represents the changing needs of a company that, despite having the world's leading cloud-co