Amazon owns Amazon Web Services, the cloud-computing division that became a major source of the company’s growth.
Amazon Web Services launched in 2006 with services including Amazon Simple Storage Service and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. These products let businesses rent storage and computing capacity over the internet instead of purchasing and maintaining all the necessary hardware themselves.
AWS grew from infrastructure built to support Amazon’s own retail operations. It became a separate business serving startups, governments, universities, and large corporations. Its scale and recurring revenue helped investors view Amazon as more than an online retailer.
Amazon’s market capitalization reflects expectations about all of its businesses, including retail, advertising, logistics, devices, and cloud computing. Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are major competitors, so AWS should not be confused with either service. The name Amazon Web Services also covers databases, analytics, machine learning, security, and developer tools, not just basic server rental.