Which cloud-computing company began as a division of Amazon and launched its first services in 2006?

Amazon Web Services is the cloud-computing company that began as an Amazon division and launched its first services in 2006.

AWS grew from Amazon’s effort to build reusable internal infrastructure for storage, computing, and other online operations. In 2006, it introduced services including Amazon Simple Storage Service and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, allowing outside customers to rent technological resources over the internet.

The pay-as-you-go model helped startups, public institutions, and large corporations avoid buying all their own servers. AWS later expanded into databases, analytics, machine learning, networking, security, and developer tools.

AWS is part of Amazon rather than a separately listed public company. Its financial results are reported as one of Amazon’s operating segments, alongside businesses such as online stores and advertising.