Amazon operates AWS, the cloud business that helped make it one of the world's most valuable companies.
Amazon Web Services, usually called AWS, provides computing power, storage, databases, networking, and other technology services over the internet. It began offering services publicly in 2006 and became a major profit source for Amazon, supporting the company's investment in retail, logistics, devices, and entertainment.
Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 as an online bookstore. It expanded into a broad marketplace and later developed advertising, streaming, logistics, and cloud-computing businesses. That diversification helped Amazon grow far beyond its original retail identity.
AWS is sometimes mistaken for a separate publicly traded company. It is a business segment of Amazon, so Amazon's market capitalization reflects the combined value investors assign to its retail and non-retail operations.