[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest public cloud service, posted its steepest growth in five years in the latest quarter.

Amazon’s third-quarter earnings report released on Oct. 29 (local time) showed AWS revenue rose 39 percent from a year earlier to $46.0 billion.

AWS’ share of Amazon revenue also rose to about 23 percent, a record high.

AWS third-quarter operating profit rose 55 percent to $17.77 billion. That topped StreetAccount’s estimate of $16.97 billion.

While AWS performed strongly, Amazon’s overall results fell short of expectations. Third-quarter Amazon revenue rose 12 percent from a year earlier to $201.9 billion. Net profit was $20.7 billion. Both figures were below analyst forecasts compiled by FactSet. Amazon shares fell more than 5 percent in after-hours trading.

Investors are watching Amazon’s AI investment spending. Amazon plans to spend $220.0 billion in capital expenditure this year. Most of it will go toward building AI data centers.

CEO Andy Jassy (앤디 재시) said during the July earnings announcement that the company would spend an additional $20.0 billion on top of its original $200.0 billion target. He cited rising memory costs. Amazon shares rose more than 9 percent at the time.

Jassy said at the time, “I have long believed AWS could become a business with hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. Now I believe it can be at least twice that, and I also see a strong possibility it could one day become a $1.0 trillion-a-year revenue business.”