• At an internal all-hands, Andy Jassy said AI gives AWS a chance to become at least a $600bn annual-revenue run-rate business roughly a decade out—double his earlier personal view of about $300bn.
  • The statement is a long-range opportunity view, not Amazon-issued AWS guidance, a committed target, contracted backlog or a forecast of revenue already secured.

What Jassy actually said

Reuters reported on 17 March 2026 that Jassy made the remarks during a regular internal Amazon all-hands. He referred to his own earlier view that AWS could be about a $300bn annual-revenue run-rate business “call it 10 years from now”, then said AI gave AWS a chance to be at least double that. Amazon declined to add detail beyond his comments.

The widely used 2036 date is therefore an approximate interpretation of “10 years from now”, not a dated undertaking in Amazon's financial guidance. “Annual revenue run rate” also annualises a pace; it is not the same as revenue recognised over a completed year.

The disclosed numbers are much nearer-term

Amazon reported AWS 2025 sales of $128.725bn. In Q1 2026, AWS sales were $37.587bn, up 28% year on year, and segment operating income was $14.161bn. Trailing-12-month AWS sales were $137.045bn and operating income was $48.220bn. Those are reported results, not evidence that the $600bn outcome is booked.

Amazon's Q2 2026 guidance covered total company net sales of $194bn–$199bn and operating income of $20bn–$24bn. It did not issue a 2036 AWS segment forecast. Likewise, Amazon's expected roughly $200bn of 2026 capital expenditure is across Amazon and includes AI, chips, robotics and low-Earth-orbit satellites; it is not an AWS-only or revenue figure.

AI demand signals have different denominators

Amazon says AWS's AI revenue run rate exceeds $15bn and that Bedrock customer spend rose 170% quarter on quarter. These company metrics support rapid present demand, but neither is a disclosed order book for the remaining gap to $600bn. The AI run rate is a subset of AWS activity and Bedrock spend growth has a different base and time period.

The first-quarter acceleration is meaningful evidence of current growth. It still cannot prove a ten-year result because price, product mix, competition, customer adoption and the share of workloads that reach paid production can all change.

Capacity must pass several conversion gates

Jassy's shareholder letter says AWS added 3.9 GW of power capacity in 2025 and expects to double total power capacity by the end of 2027. These are company-reported infrastructure milestones, not measures of installed servers, customer utilisation or revenue. Power secured, data-centre completion, hardware installation, service availability, workload use and recognised sales are separate stages.

Amazon says some infrastructure cash is committed about six months ahead and much of it up to two years before monetisation; networking and hardware may have roughly six-year useful lives, while data centres may last more than 30 years. The timing helps explain why trailing-12-month free cash flow fell to $1.2bn as net property-and-equipment purchases rose by $59.3bn, primarily reflecting AI investment. It does not guarantee utilisation, margins or return on invested capital.

What the evidence does and does not establish

The $600bn figure is best read as Jassy's conditional opportunity case. Reaching it requires sustained paid demand, power and land, permits, chips and memory, construction, networking, reliable operations, competitive pricing and regulatory access. Capex spent is not capacity delivered; capacity delivered is not utilisation; utilisation is not revenue; and revenue is not profit or cash flow.

Amazon's releases are authoritative for its reported results and its own plans, but forward-looking demand, capacity and return claims remain management statements. Reuters independently establishes the context and wording of the internal meeting. Future updates should preserve those evidence roles instead of upgrading an executive view into company guidance.

What to watch

  • AWS quarterly sales, operating income and margin against the $137.045bn trailing base.
  • Any formal long-range AWS guidance, rather than an internal executive opportunity view.
  • Definition and progression of the more-than-$15bn AWS AI revenue run rate.
  • Delivered power, data-centre and chip capacity versus plans and reservations.
  • Amazon-wide capex allocation, free cash flow and disclosed return measures.
  • Customer conversion, pricing, competition, supply constraints and regulation.

Sources