Wall Street gains as Amazon eases AI concerns

Amazon reported its largest quarterly revenue growth in more than four years, and the market responded the way markets do when existential fears get resolved: it bought everything in sight. The numbers that moved markets AWS posted revenue growth of 37% year-over-year, clearing analyst expectations of around 31% by a wide margin. Amazon shares jumped over 15% in the session following the report. The company also raised its full-year capital expenditure guidance to $220 billion, an increase of $20 billion from prior projections, with nearly all of that incremental spending earmarked for AI infrastructure. CEO Andy Jassy’s commentary during the earnings call directly addressed the concern that had been stalking tech stocks all month: whether AI spending was a rational investment or an expensive bet with no clear return timeline. Jassy’s answers, paired with the AWS numbers, were apparently sufficient to put that debate to rest, at least for now. Why this matters beyond Amazon Microsoft reported similarly strong results earlier in the same week, adding another data point to what is becoming a coherent narrative: the major cloud platforms are not just spending on AI, they are beginning...