Amazon has said it plans to pump more funding into AI, chips and robotics after launching 200 billion US dollar (£147 billion) investment plans.
Shares in the company slid in value after it became the latest tech giant to commit to vast spending plans in a bid to keep pace with rivals across the sector.
The investment plan, which covers 2026 alone, outpaces similar commitments by rivals including Microsoft and Google.
Capital Expenditure will surge from almost 130 billion US dollars (£95.8 billion) in 2025, as it pours money into opening more data centres.
It came as the Silicon Valley firm founded by Jeff Bezos reported that net sales increased by 14% to 213.4 billion dollars (£157.3 billion) in the final three months of last year.
This included 10% growth in North America and 17% growth in its international business.
Meanwhile, sales in Amazon Web Services lifted by 24% to 35.6 billion dollars (£26.2 billion) for the period.
Andy Jassy, president and chief executive of Amazon, said: “AWS growing 24% (our fastest growth in 13 quarters), advertising growing 22%, stores growing briskly across North America and International, our chips business growing triple digit percentages year-over-year – this growth is happening because we’re continuing to innovate at a rapid rate, and identify and knock down customer problems.
“With such strong demand for our existing offerings and seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics and low-Earth-orbit satellites, we expect to invest about 200 billion dollars in capital expenditures across Amazon in 2026, and anticipate strong long-term return on invested capital.”
It comes only a week after Amazon told staff it plans to cut around 16,000 jobs globally as part of efforts to streamline its operations.
Earlier this week, The Washington Post – the newspaper group owned by Mr Bezos – also announced it would lay off around a third of its workforce.
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