SEATTLE, Washington: Amazon's market value surpassed US$3 trillion for the first time on August 3 after investors cheered strong earnings and accelerating growth in its cloud business, reinforcing confidence that artificial intelligence investments are beginning to pay off.

The company's shares rose five percent to a record high of $285.01 and have gained more than 23 percent this year.

Last week, Amazon recorded its biggest one-day share gain since April 2012 after reporting its strongest cloud growth in more than four years and raising its annual capital spending forecast.

"Amazon is probably the most emblematic of the economy right now. It's a consumer story, and it's an AI story," said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide.

"The big skepticism coming into earnings season was if they (hyperscalers) were turning the spigot down on spending on AI. We did not get that from Amazon and Microsoft, and that has unleashed a much broader all-clear for the market."

Shares of other major technology companies also advanced on August 3, with Microsoft up four percent, Meta Platforms up six percent, Alphabet up 3.6 percent, and Oracle up five percent.

Microsoft last week said it expects to remain cash-generative through fiscal 2027 and forecast capital spending below Wall Street estimates, helping drive its biggest one-day share gain since 2008.

Tesla and Alphabet, however, posted negative cash flows in the latest quarter — the first such result for Alphabet — while Meta's free cash flow fell 91 percent as the companies continued investing billions of dollars in AI infrastructure.

"We're starting to see a differentiation between winners and losers in the Mag 7. They have been treated like one big company for a long time, but with last week's moves, they're being treated as individual companies, which is a healthy sign that balance is back," Hackett said.

Amazon joins Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Nvidia as the only companies to have reached a market value of $3 trillion. Nvidia remains the world's most valuable company with a market capitalization approaching $5 trillion.

Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, Amazon crossed the $2 trillion mark in June 2024 and has now added another $1 trillion in value in just over two years.

Amazon Web Services has benefited from expanding partnerships, including cloud infrastructure and chip supply agreements with OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta.