与前一天投资者对Alphabet Inc.财报的反应类似，当Amazon.com Inc.周四发布第三季度财报时，其云计算部门的卓越表现被业务其他部分的担忧所掩盖。一个低于预期的圣诞季预测和季度营收未达预期引发了盘后急跌。股价一度下跌7%，此前盘中已跌4.25%。
Similar to investor reaction to Alphabet Inc.’s earnings a day earlier, the stellar performance of Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud unit was overshadowed by jitters around other parts of the business when the company reported third-quarter results on Thursday. A softer-than-expected forecast for Christmas and a miss on quarterly revenue prompted a sharp selloff after hours. At one point shares were down 7% after dropping 4.25% earlier in the day.
尽管公司公布了Amazon Web Services (AWS) —— 全球最大的云计算服务商 —— 近五年来最高的营收增速，实现了连续第六个季度销售加速增长。这并非本周首次，投资者似乎纠结于短期干扰，而忽略了大得多的全貌，首席执行官Andy Jassy表示，在Amazon的案例中，这指的是云计算部门可能在五到十年内实现年营收超过1万亿美元。他并非在夸大其词。
This came despite the company posting the highest revenue growth for Amazon Web Services (AWS) — the world’s largest provider of cloud computing — in almost five years, a sixth consecutive quarter of accelerating sales. Not for the first time this week, investors seemed to get hung up on short-term disruptions while missing the far bigger picture, which in Amazon’s case is a cloud unit that could surpass $1 trillion in annual revenue within five to 10 years, Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said. He was not being hyperbolic.
Amazon的资本支出达2200亿美元，是所有超大规模云服务商中最高的，但有充分理由。其积压订单 —— 衡量尚未履行的云计算订单的指标 —— 达5780亿美元。为满足需求，公司表示正以大约每14秒安装一颗AI加速器芯片的速度部署。明年，它将开始向其他公司出售自研芯片，用于其数据中心基础设施，Alphabet已在这样做。
At $220 billion, Amazon’s capital spending is the highest of all the hyperscalers, but with good reason. Its backlog — the measure of cloud-computing orders not yet fulfilled — is $578 billion. To meet demand, the company said it was installing AI accelerator chips at a rate of around one every 14 seconds. Next year, it will start selling its own chips to other companies for use in their data center infrastructure, something Alphabet already does.
积压订单让亚马逊对未来几年有了一定洞察，并赋予了贾西信心，预测 2027 年和 2028 年收入增长将“超过” 40%，那 1 万亿美元的里程碑也不再遥远 —— 按 40% 的年增长率计算，将在 2032 年达到这一规模。“我们正处于这一拐点的非常早期阶段，”贾西对投资者表示，“我们的战略正在奏效，我预计在可预见的未来也将继续奏效。”
The backlog gives Amazon some insight into the next few years and provides Jassy with the confidence to predict “north” of 40% revenue growth in 2027 and 2028, with that $1 trillion milestone not all that far over the horizon — at 40% annual growth, it would hit that mark in 2032. “We’re in the very early days of this inflection,” Jassy told investors. “Our strategy is working, and I expect it will for the foreseeable future.”
该战略的核心在于亚马逊作为“瑞士军刀式” AI 供应商的地位，服务于最大的企业客户群。其 Bedrock 平台让企业能够根据新功能或更关键的是价格，常态化且轻松地在不同模型间切换。贾西正在押注 AI 竞赛永远不会有明确的赢家。
That strategy hinges on Amazon’s position as a Swiss-Army-knife provider of AI to the largest enterprise customer base. Its Bedrock platform allows companies to routinely and easily switch between models based on new capabilities or, more to the point, price. Jassy is making a wise bet that the AI race never has a clear winner.
“人们总是假设早期领先的东西将成为人们唯一使用的东西，但事实从来不是这样，”贾西在电话会上生动地对投资者说道。“我要说在未来两到三年内，我认为将会有六到八个模型彼此旗鼓相当，或者至少足以应对 95% 以上的其他工作负载。” 如果这就是未来，请对比亚马逊的地位与甲骨文公司、SpaceX 等计算能力竞争对手的处境，后者过度依赖单一 AI 实验室的命运，足以让投资者彻夜难眠。
“People always assume that whatever is in the lead early on is going to be the only thing that people use, and it’s never the case,” Jassy animatedly told investors on the call. “I’ll say in the next two to three years, I think there are going to be six to eight models that are about as good as each other, or at least good enough for 95-plus percent of the other workloads.”If that is the future, contrast Amazon’s position to rival sellers of computing power like Oracle Corp. and SpaceX, whose overreliance on the fortunes of single AI labs should keep investors awake at night.
彭博社周四报道，SpaceX 依靠 Anthropic 贡献了其总收入的三分之一强，这得益于一项最早明年就可能终止的协议。因担心 AI 实验室（最突出的是 OpenAI）未来可能无法支付账单，甲骨文债务的保险成本已飙升。
SpaceX, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, relies on Anthropic for just more than a third of its total revenue, thanks to a deal that could end as early as next year. The cost of insuring Oracle’s debt has skyrocketed on fears that AI labs, OpenAI most prominently, might one day fail to pay the bills.
没有任何公司能完全免受此类崩塌的影响 —— Anthropic 和 OpenAI 也占据了 AWS 未来合同的很大一部分 —— 但贾西深知，他被公认为创立的云业务比大多数同行都站在更稳固的基础之上。
No company will be totally insulated from such collapses — Anthropic and OpenAI make up a huge portion of AWS future contracts, too — but Jassy knows the cloud business he is credited with creating is on a much stronger footing than most.
当然，短期内，亚马逊电商业务（单季销售额达690亿美元）必须应对生活成本上升和燃油成本增加的风暴。这将导致假日季比预期更加平淡，但很快就会在自身AI助力下重回正轨：杰西表示，过去12个月有约4亿客户使用了Alexa购物功能。使用该机器人的美国客户，每单消费比未使用者多出50%。
So sure, in the short term, Amazon’s e-commerce business, which posted $69 billion in quarterly sales, must weather the storms of the rising cost of living and increased fuel costs. That will make for a quieter-than-hoped holiday season, but it will soon be back on track with an added AI boost of its own: Some 400 million customers have used Alexa for Shopping in the past 12 months, Jassy said. US customers who used the bot spent 50% more per order than those who didn’t.
AI热潮正流向亚马逊的强项。正如杰西在财报电话会上提醒分析师的：“从未有过年收入达万亿美元的企业”——而亚马逊看来正朝着在AWS和电商业务中拥有两个万亿美元级业务的目标迈进。
The AI boom is flowing toward Amazon’s strengths. As Jassy reminded analysts on the earnings call, “There has never been a business with a trillion dollars of annual revenue” — and Amazon looks to be on track to having two of them in AWS and its e-commerce business.