Amazon (AMZN) stock remains near record levels after the company reported second-quarter results and reached a new all-time high. Shares later eased from that peak, but Amazon's core businesses continued to post strong growth across cloud computing, advertising, e-commerce, and artificial intelligence services.

Amazon also continued heavy spending on AI infrastructure, a pattern mirrored across the largest cloud providers as companies race to build out computing capacity for AI workloads. Strong operating results helped support that investment plan as the company expanded data centers, chips, automation, and cloud capacity.

Amazon Stock Supported by AWS Growth

Amazon Web Services generated $42.2 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 36.7% from a year earlier. AWS growth accelerated for a fifth straight quarter, while revenue increased by more than $4.6 billion from the previous quarter. AWS remains Amazon's largest profit contributor despite accounting for a smaller share of total revenue than the retail business.

AWS backlog reached $496 billion and grew at a triple-digit rate from a year earlier. Backlog reflects contracted customer commitments not yet recognized as revenue, making it a closely watched indicator of future cloud demand. The business now has an annualized revenue run rate of about $169 billion as customers move more workloads to cloud services.

AWS also produced $16.6 billion in operating income during the quarter, and its revenue growth accelerated for the fifth consecutive quarter, according to Amazon management. The pace of that acceleration has drawn attention because AWS competes directly with Microsoft's Azure and Google Cloud, both of which have also reported strong AI-driven cloud demand.

Amazon's custom chip business exceeded a $25 billion annualized revenue run rate and grew at a triple-digit pace. AI-related revenue also moved above $25 billion as customers increased spending on computing power and AI services. Custom silicon has become a strategic focus for cloud providers seeking alternatives to Nvidia's GPUs for cost-efficient AI computing.

Demand for Amazon's Graviton processors also increased. Revenue commitments for the platform nearly tripled from the previous quarter, while Graviton5 adoption continued to grow among large AWS customers.

Advertising Revenue Keeps Expanding

Amazon's advertising revenue reached $19.8 billion in the second quarter, rising 26% from a year earlier. Sponsored Products remained the company's largest advertising format and continued to support growth across its retail platform. The ad business has become one of Amazon's fastest-growing revenue streams and a meaningful profit driver, leveraging shopping data that distinguishes it from ad platforms without direct commerce activity.

Amazon also expanded advertising through Prime Video, live sports, Alexa+, and shopping tools. These services give brands more ways to reach consumers across Amazon's digital platforms.

Fulfillment and Automation Investments

Amazon continued to improve its e-commerce network by placing inventory closer to customers and reducing package travel distances. The company also cut handling steps and improved package consolidation to control delivery costs. Regionalized fulfillment has been a multi-year effort to lower the cost per package as delivery speeds increase.

Automation remains part of that strategy. Amazon expects to more than double its fleet of robotic arms, which could increase warehouse productivity as order volumes grow.

Together, cloud growth, advertising gains, AI spending, and fulfillment improvements remain central to the current Amazon stock story. How quickly AWS converts its record backlog into revenue, and how rising AI capital expenditures affect cash flow over coming quarters, are among the factors investors are watching next.