Amazon cloud records 20% sales growth, topping estimates

Amazon said Thursday that revenue in its cloud computing business increased 20% in the third quarter, exceeding analysts’ estimates.

Revenue at Amazon Web Services for the third quarter totaled $33 billion. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had expected $32.42 billion, or growth of 18.1%.

AWS is the world’s top provider of cloud infrastructure, but it’s facing intensifying pressure from competitors Google and Microsoft, which also reported quarterly results this week.

Google’scloud revenueincreased 34% during the third quarter, whileMicrosoft Azurerecorded growth of 40%.

Amazon’s earnings report comes a little over a week after AWS experienced anextended outagethat lasted more than 15 hours, taking down numerous websites. Microsoftwas hit with outagesin its Azure cloud and 365 services on Wednesday, hours before its scheduled earnings release.

Amazon officially opened its$11 billion AI data centercalled Project Rainier on Wednesday. The facility, first announced last year, is intended to train and run models from Claude creator Anthropic. Amazon, which has invested$8 billionin Anthropic, said the startup will use 1 million of its custom Trainium2 chips by the end of 2025.

The new data center could help Amazon battle the perception that it’s missing out on a flurry of highly lucrativeartificial intelligencedeals for cloud services. Anthropic and Google deepened theircloud partnershiplast week in a deal worth tens of billions of dollars, whileMetahas inkedhefty cloud dealswithGoogleandOraclein recent months.

WATCH: Amazon’s $11 billion data center in Indiana goes live