AWS exceeds Wall Street’s expectations as demand for cloud infra remains high

Amazon’s cloud infrastructure service, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is on track to post its strongest year of growth in three years, fueled by the AI ​​industry’s unprecedented demand for computing power.

AWS is growing 20% ​​year over year and ended the third quarter with $33.1 billion in revenue in the first nine months of the year, Amazon announced in its publication of the third quarter figures on Thursday. Business segment operating income rose to $11.4 billion in the third quarter, compared to $10.4 billion at the same point in 2024.

“AWS is growing at a pace not seen since 2022, accelerating again to 20.2% year over year,” Andy Jassy, ​​Amazon’s president and CEO, said in the company’s earnings announcement. “We continue to see strong demand for AI and core infrastructure, and we have been focused on accelerating capacity – adding more than 3.8 gigawatts in the last twelve months.”

AWS launched an infrastructure region in New Zealand this quarter and has three more regions in the pipeline.

The cloud infrastructure provider also secured several new deals across industries in the third quarter, including some notable names in the AI ​​market. In July, AWS partners with Perplexity to launch the AI ​​browser company’s enterprise product. AWS also partnered with Cursor in the third quarter.

AI’s intense infrastructure demands have also been a boon to AWS’s competitors. OpenAI and Oracle reportedly closed a massive $300 billion cloud computing deal in September, set to launch in 2027. The pair also struck a deal for OpenAI to pay Oracle $30 billion a year for data center services. Last week, Google and Anthropic announced a cloud deal worth tens of billions of dollars.

These huge deals come despite skepticism about how much cloud infrastructure will actually be needed in the future and whether the industry is heading into bubble territory. However, it makes sense that cloud companies like AWS benefit from a market where customers are willing to pay large sums for their services.

“You’ll see us continue to be very aggressive in investing in capacity as we see demand,” Jassy said of investing in AI infrastructure. “As quickly as we are currently adding capacity, we are also generating revenue from it.”

This news comes two days after Amazon announced it is cutting 14,000 corporate jobs as it looks to invest more in its AI strategy.