Amazon joined the exclusive $2 trillion club Wednesday after Wall Street investors pushed the value of the e-commerce giant's stock past that threshold.
Shares in Amazon.com Inc. finished the day up almost 4%, giving the Seattle-based company a stock market valuation of $2.01 trillion. Its stock has gained 52% in the past 12 months, partly driven by enthusiasm for the company's investments in artificial intelligence.
Amazon now joins Google's parent Alphabet, software behemoth Microsoft, iPhone maker Apple and chip maker Nvidia among companies with valuations of at least $2 trillion.
Last week, Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia's chips are used to power many AI applications and its valuation has soared as a result.
Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the focus has been on business-focused products, including AI models and a chatbot called Q, which Amazon makes available to businesses that use its cloud computing unit AWS.
"A big part of the valuation boost has been cloud and AI," said Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives. "Amazon is going to be a major player in the AI revolution."
In April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that AI capabilities have reaccelerated AWS' growth and that it was on pace for $100 billion in annual revenue. The unit's growth slowed last year as companies cut down on costs amid high inflation.
Amazon has also invested $4 billion in the San Francisco-based AI company Anthropic to develop so-called foundation models that underpin generative AI systems. In addition, Amazon makes and designs its own AI chips.
Outside of its cloud business, Amazon has cut costs significantly since late 2022, laying off more than 27,000 corporate employees across several divisions. It reported revenue and profits for the first quarter of the year, aiding by growth in AWS as well as its core retail business and advertising. All those things are boosting investor sentiments, said Neil Saunders, the managing director at GlobalData Retail.
"Certainly, there are downsides, but these are mostly external — such as the threat from the FTC," Saunders said, alluding to the federal agency's antitrust lawsuit against the company.
But, he said, "investors see these clouds as a long way off so they are not dampening the current valuation."
American Society of Cinematographers presents 2024 Student Heritage Award winners
The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) announced winners in the 2024 Student Heritage Awards competition. Three student filmmakers were selected for demonstrating outstanding cinematography skills in their submitted work. The Awards ceremony, presided over by ASC president Shelly Johnson and held at the historic ASC Clubhouse in Hollywood, also celebrated the lasting memory of three legendary ASC members whose work inspired generations.
Ellen Kuras, ASC presented the John Bailey Heritage Award (Graduate Category) to Joewi Verhoeven of the American Film Institute for “Taha.”
The George Spiro Dibie Heritage Award (Undergraduate Category) was presented by Michael Goi, ASC, ISC to Isabelle Leonard of the University of Southern California for “Amos' Bride.”
Patrick Cady, ASC presented The Haskell Wexler Documentary Award to Meg Weck of the University of Southern California for “Danceable.”
The Student Awards, sponsored by Sony, are one of several educational programs designed by the organization to support a new generation of talent in the early stages of their cinematography careers. To qualify, a student’s undergraduate, graduate or documentary project is submitted and judged by an ASC blue-ribbon panel for demonstrating exceptional cinematographic skill.
Many of the ASC Student Heritage Award winners have gone on to have successful careers in filmmaking, including the Student Awards Committee co-chairs Craig Kief and Armando Salas, alongside other ASC members Nelson Cragg, Masanobu Takayanagi, and Lisa Wiegand.
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