Amazon Inc. achieved a market capitalization of $2 trillion for the first time, making it the fifth U.S. company to reach this milestone. The increase in valuation was fueled by optimism about artificial intelligence advancements and expectations of potential interest rate reductions this year, which boosted demand for technology stocks.
Amazon has now attained a market valuation of at least $2 trillion, alongside Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia among companies with an appraisal of at least $2 trillion. Nvidia briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street after reaching $3 trillion, driven by its AI chip technology. Amazon continues to invest significantly in AI, focusing on business-oriented products like AI models and the Q chatbot available through AWS.
“A big part of the valuation boost has been cloud and AI,” stated Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives. “Amazon is going to be a major player in the AI revolution.”
In April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that AI capabilities have reaccelerated AWS’ growth and that it was on pace for $100 billion in annual revenue. The unit’s growth slowed last year as companies cut down on costs amid high inflation.
Amazon has also invested $4 billion to Anthropic, a San Francisco-based AI firm, to advance foundational models supporting generative AI systems. Additionally, Amazon is involved in developing its own AI chips.
Since late 2022, Amazon has implemented substantial cost-cutting measures beyond its cloud business, resulting in the layoffs of over 27,000 corporate employees across multiple divisions. Despite this, the company reported revenue and profit increases in the first quarter of the year, driven by growth in AWS, its core retail operations, and advertising. According to Neil Saunders, Managing Director at GlobalData Retail, these developments are boosting investor confidence.
“Certainly, there are downsides, but these are mostly external — such as the threat from the FTC,” Saunders said.