Amazon was an early investor in Anthropic, the company behind Claude, and put $13 billion in with the option to invest $20 billion more. That $13 billion stake is now worth much more, given that Anthropic is considering going public at a valuation of around $1 trillion.

The AI IPO wave of 2026 continues to produce outsized winners among the corporations that backed it, instead of just those going public. SpaceX’s record-breaking debut earlier this year provided a windfall for its backers.

Sales in the e-commerce and cloud computing company’s Amazon Web Services jumped 37% to $42.2 billion, nearly $2 billion above estimates. Sales growth in the cloud services division is a key metric for Amazon and the broader AI trade, as it serves as an indicator of demand from other companies that run AI products.

Analysts reveal what could happen to Amazon shares, but the thesis may be ignoring the bigger picture.

The tensions are high between Amazon and Anthropic, and they don’t appear to be easing any time soon. According to a new report from The Information, a contract between the companies that was renegotiated earlier this year will require Amazon to pay Anthropic based on token usage,

Everyone is debating which AI company will build the best AI model. But that may be the wrong question for investors to focus on.

Amazon shares surged in after-hours trading Thursday after the tech giant posted its first $200 billion quarter and beat Wall Street expectations with its financial results. Growth in advertising and AWS keyed the performance,