Amazon Plans to Spend $200 Billion on A.I. and Other Projects This Year
Nytimes reports that Amazon said it would spend $200 billion this year on data centers, satellites and other big-ticket items as it invests heavily in the race for artificial intelligence. The figure topped Wall Street’s predictions by $50 billion.
The announcement overshadowed a strong holiday quarter: sales reached $213.4 billion, up 14 percent from a year earlier, and profit grew to $21.2 billion. Amazon’s cloud computing division saw sales grow 24 percent to $35.6 billion.
The company warned that higher costs could reduce operating profit to as little as $16.5 billion in the current quarter, and its shares fell 8 percent in after-hours trading. Amazon spent more than $38 billion on capital expenditures in the quarter, bringing its total for the year to more than $128 billion.