In the wave of artificial intelligence development, major technology giants have increased investment to seize the commanding heights of future development. It is reported that Amazon plans to invest about $100 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) development by 2025, which is called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
On February 7, according to the Financial Times, Amazon announced that it would invest about $100 billion in research and development for its artificial intelligence projects in 2025. This decision demonstrates the e-commerce giant's strong belief and investment in AI technology. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said at an investor conference on Thursday local time that the company's $26 billion spending in the last three months of last year was "quite representative" and that the huge investment would be mainly used by Amazon Web Services (AWS), the division responsible for operating data centers and providing software tools to customers.
This move by Amazon is not accidental. Since OpenAI released its ChatGPT assistant at the end of 2022, the popularity of generative AI has exploded, and the demand for related technology has risen sharply. Amazon has been investing in data centers, network equipment, and hardware to meet this huge demand. At the same time, Amazon has also launched a series of AI products, including its own Nova series of models, Trainium chips, shopping chatbots, and a third-party model marketplace called Bedrock, in an attempt to gain a foothold in the AI space.
It is worth mentioning that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy predicted in October last year that the company's capital expenditure in 2025 will exceed that of 2024, driven by the growth of generative AI. As he expected, capital spending in 2025 will exceed last year's spending of about $83 billion. "We invested $26.3 billion in capex in the fourth quarter, which I think reasonably represents your expectations for the annualized capex rate for 2025, with the vast majority of capex going to AI at AWS," Jassy said in a call with investors following the company's fourth-quarter earnings release. He also reassured investors over the phone, saying the increase was a "once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity" and would be worth the money. In the longer term, he sees a "significant demand signal" for AI services and products, and believes that cheaper, more efficient tools will drive customers to spend more, and businesses will spend significantly less per unit of infrastructure, which will be good for business growth.
Figure: Amazon plans to invest $100 billion in AI development by 2025 (Source: CNBC).
In the tech industry, Amazon is not alone in the AI space. Google's parent company Alphabet has increased its capex budget by 42% to $75 billion in 2025, and CEO Sundar Pichai said that the reduction in AI costs will make more use cases viable; Microsoft announced last month that it would invest $80 billion in AI data center construction by 2025; Meta also said it would invest up to $65 billion in capital expenditures as it works to build more data centers and computing infrastructure. It can be said that the major tech giants are fiercely competing in the field of AI, and Amazon's $100 billion investment undoubtedly puts it in a better position in this competition, and its annual investment plan even surpasses that of Alphabet and Microsoft.
Although Chinese AI startup DeepSeek made waves in the market last month with the launch of a model with excellent performance and lower cost, chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom combined for $800 billion in market value, and tech companies are also facing new questions about their AI spending plans, but tech companies such as Amazon are still sticking to their original spending plans and are confident in the future development of AI technology.
Amazon's investment in the field of artificial intelligence in 2025 is an important strategic decision for it to adapt to the development trend of the times and pursue long-term development. This $100 billion investment is not only expected to promote Amazon's own greater breakthroughs in AI technology and further consolidate its dominant position in cloud computing and e-commerce, but also have a far-reaching impact on the development of the entire AI industry, which may trigger a new round of technological innovation and market competition, bringing more possibilities for the popularization and application of AI technology.
