Amazon joins Big Tech AI spending spree

Amazon on Thursday joined the other US tech giants in announcing a huge increase in spending on artificial intelligence (AI) projects and infrastructure, which seemed to knock back investors.

Reporting on its past year's financial performance, Amazon said it was expecting to spend $200bn this year on building out its business, much of it on AI.

That is a significant increase from last year, when it spent $125bn. The company's stock dipped in after hours trading by 10%.

While Amazon's spending plans are now the most aggressive among the Big Tech companies, including Meta, Google and Microsoft, collectively they expect to spend around $650bn on AI and related projects this year.