The Untold Story of Amazon’s Trillion-Dollar Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ascent

Written By Michael Gary Scott

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) commenced its journey as an online bookseller in 1994. While e-commerce remains its primary revenue source, the tech titan has diversified into various technology sectors, with artificial intelligence (AI) emerging as a new frontier.

AI stands as one of the most monumental financial prospects in history, a notion Amazon has embraced fervently. Recently, the company finalized a $4 billion investment in Anthropic, a prominent AI startup. This strategic move is poised to catapult Amazon’s advancements in both hardware and software realms.

Amazon’s Dominance in the AI Sphere

Amazon Web Services (AWS) reigns supreme as the global leader in cloud services. Providing a plethora of solutions for data storage, digital sales channels, software development, and AI app creation, AWS is strategically positioned to dominate the three primary strata of AI.

In the hardware domain, Amazon utilizes Nvidia’s powerhouse graphics processing units (GPUs) to handle AI workloads efficiently. Moreover, the tech giant has ventured into chip design, unveiling the Trainium2, a chip four times swifter and twice as energy-efficient as its predecessor. This innovation enables developers to train large language models (LLMs) with unprecedented speed, a pivotal element in popular applications like ChatGPT.

For those seeking ready-made AI models for swift application development, AWS offers an array of options including its proprietary Titan models and collaborations with industry leaders like Anthropic, Meta Platforms, and Stability AI.

A digital render of a black chip inscribed with AI, sitting on a circuit board.

Image source: Getty Images.

The Impact of the Amazon-Anthropic Collaboration

In September 2023, Amazon and Anthropic solidified a game-changing partnership. With a $4 billion investment from Amazon, of which $2.75 billion was recently disbursed, Anthropic is set to accelerate Amazon’s AI initiatives significantly.

Anthropic, renowned for its generative AI chatbot Claude, has seen its Claude 3 models outperform competitors like OpenAI’s GTP-4 in numerous multimodal benchmarks. Leveraging AWS as its primary cloud provider and Amazon’s cutting-edge chips for model training, Anthropic has the potential to sway leading developers from Nvidia’s hardware. Moreover, by making its models available on AWS, Anthropic gains a competitive edge in cloud service selection.

Microsoft, the world’s second-largest cloud provider, allocated $10 billion to OpenAI in the prior year. Should Claude continue to outshine GPT-4, Amazon and AWS could clinch the paramount position in the AI arena.

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Amazon’s Pivotal Position Among Trillion-Dollar Stocks

With a staggering $574 billion in revenue for 2023, topping its trillion-dollar counterparts, Amazon holds a unique position in the market. Despite this, its market capitalization of $1.9 trillion remains below Apple’s $2.7 trillion, resulting in a competitive price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 3.2.


Amazon Stock: A Diamond in the Rough?

Valuation Discrepancy in the Tech Sector

Amazon’s stock, while substantially cheaper than its trillion-dollar tech peers like Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta Platforms, and Alphabet on a P/S basis, continues to intrigue investors. Even as Amazon’s revenue grew by 12% in 2023—outpacing Apple and Alphabet—its stock trades at half their P/S ratio. The e-commerce giant’s lower valuation can be attributed to the razor-thin margins of its primary business.

AWS Potential Unleashed

Despite the aforementioned, Amazon Web Services (AWS) stands out as a highly profitable segment, with $24.6 billion in operating income generated on $90.7 billion in revenue in the last fiscal year. Projections indicate that AI, a sector in which AWS plays a pivotal role, is poised to have a multi-trillion dollar impact on the global economy. Ark Investment Management further estimates that AI software companies could rake in $14 trillion in revenue by 2030.

These figures imply that AWS holds substantial untapped potential. As AWS scales to become a more significant revenue contributor to Amazon, it is expected to enhance the organization’s overall profitability. Hence, those who invest in Amazon now may reap the rewards in the future.

Future Potential Beyond Conventional Metrics

Investors viewing Amazon solely through the lens of conventional metrics may underestimate the hidden gem that it is shaping up to be. The forecasts about the seismic impact of AI, combined with AWS’s robust financial performance, paint a picture of a stock that may be undervalued in the current market.

As Amazon’s various segments continue to evolve and contribute to its growth trajectory, the stock may undergo significant revaluation in the coming years. In retrospect, those who seize the opportunity to invest now might find themselves in a favorable position down the road.