Amazon cloud chief says potential AI business is ‘just massive’

Amazon Web Services chief executive officer Matt Garman said customers are shifting from training AI models to integrating them into business workloads, fueling demand for inference, and that the potential AI business is 'just massive.' Amazon last week raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to US$220 billion from US$200 billion, citing rising costs of memory and data center components, and is signing five-year customer commitments to project demand for new data centers.

Amazon cloud chief says potential AI business is ‘just massive’ Amazon is signing customers with an eye toward long-term deals AMAZON’s cloud chief said customers are starting to shift from using the company’s services to train AI models to integrating them into their businesses — fuelling demand for a process known as inference. “We still see large training clusters being used by a number of companies, but as these models get really popular and really powerful, more and more companies are integrating that inference into their workloads,” Amazon Web Services chief executive officer Matt Garman said on the Bloomberg Tech television show on Monday Aug 3 . Training is the computing-intensive process of assembling an AI model. Inference is the practice of using that model to respond to a user’s prompts. Amazon, the largest seller of rented computing power and data services, last week said it would spend US$220 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, up from a prior forecast of US$200 billion. The uptick in spending reflects the rising price of memory and other components required for data centres. Garman declined to forecast the company’s spending next year, but said the potential artificial intelligence business for the company is “just massive.” He said Amazon is confident in its projections for demand, and is signing up customers with an eye toward long-term deals that help AWS project use for new data centres. “As we’re investing, we’re getting five-year commitments from customers,” Garman told Bloomberg Television. “Today, demand still significantly outstrips supply and we’re trying to build and invest to keep up with what customers are asking for.” The shares have soared in recent days, propelling Amazon’s market value beyond US$3 trillion, after the company reported last week that cloud-computing revenue accelerated for a fifth straight quarter. https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/telcos-media-tech/amazon-beats-cloud-sales-growth-estimates-shares-jump BLOOMBERG Decoding Asia newsletter: your guide to navigating Asia in a new global order. Sign up here to get Decoding Asia newsletter. Delivered to your inbox. Free. Share with us your feedback on BT's products and services