On the evening of October 29, 2026, U.S. time, Amazon announced its third-quarter financial results for 2026, topping Wall Street analysts’ expectations. The primary growth driver continued to be its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), as demand for computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence services accelerated sharply.
Highest Revenue Growth Since Late 2021
AWS net sales in the third quarter reached $45.98 billion, representing a 39% increase year-over-year and coming in above the $45.29 billion projection compiled by StreetAccount. This marks the Amazon cloud division’s most impressive quarterly growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2021. Operating income for the segment also posted a 55% leap to $17.77 billion, compared to the market estimate of $16.97 billion.
The cloud services business now accounts for nearly 23% of Amazon’s overall consolidated revenue, setting a new record proportion. CEO Andy Jassy emphasized that core storage and compute services are experiencing their strongest rebound in years as businesses not only migrate infrastructure but also step up the integration of AI workloads into daily operations.
The acceleration at AWS comes shortly after competitor Alphabet reported strong cloud computing growth with Google Cloud revenue more than doubling, indicating that the global wave of AI infrastructure spending has shown no signs of cooling down.
Expanding Agreements with Meta and OpenAI to Fortify Market Share
During the reporting period, AWS finalized large-scale partnership agreements with two leading industry names in AI, Meta and OpenAI. The expanded alliances help Amazon maintain its leadership standing amid increasing pressure from rivals such as Microsoft Azure, fueled by revenue from OpenAI. In addition, AWS completed the acquisition of data analytics startup DuckLabs to strengthen its real-time analytics processing capabilities.
To handle burgeoning workloads, Amazon continues to expand bulk procurement plans for specialized graphics processing units from Nvidia. The move is designed to ensure an adequate supply of compute resources for large language models and autonomous AI solutions being deployed widely by enterprise clients.
Plans to Bring Trainium AI Chips Outside the Cloud Ecosystem
A strategic highlight disclosed by Andy Jassy during the earnings call was the plan to commercialize the company’s internally developed microcontrollers. Facing overwhelming customer demand, Amazon expects to allow partners to run its Trainium AI training chips outside proprietary AWS data centers starting in late 2027.
This strategy mirrors a similar transition Google implemented to grow market share for its dedicated TPU chips. Even so, AWS’s ambition to reach $1 trillion in revenue over the next 5 to 10 years remains heavily reliant on whether the current wave of infrastructure investment can soon generate tangible returns on investment for enterprise clients.