R&D: Amazon reaches $22.6 billion thanks to cloud investments
“It’s easy to have ideas; It’s their implementation that’s difficult.”
Jeff Bezos
A clear and simple message that Amazon’s number one has been able to put into practice by transforming his giant into the “King” of research and development.
The U.S. research firm Factset attests that the group led by Jeff Bezos invested as much as $22.6 billion in 2017. Amazon distances itself from all other tech players.
Alphabet (Google), second, spent “only” $16.6 billion. This is followed by Intel (13.1 billion), Microsoft (12.3) and Apple (11.6). Jeff Bezos’ giant has increased its investments by 41 percent and even in 2016 led the ranking with 16.1 billion (practically what Alphabet now spends).
The rest of the ranking sees the pharmaceutical giants Johnson & Johnson ($10.4 billion) and Merck ($9.6 billion), Ford ($8 billion), Facebook (which, with $7.8 billion, jumped from 13th to ninth place in one year, with a 32 percent increase in R&D) and Pfizer (7.6 percent).
According to Factset, Facebook’s impressive performance could be attributed to the hi-tech lab Building 8, where the social network develops its most futuristic projects. In any case, the relevant figure still remains that of Amazon, capable of confirming its position in the ranking.
The numbers collected by the research firm include spending on “technology and content” supported by the e-commerce platform and cloud division, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
It is the latter business unit, along with the development of the Alexa voice assistant and other innovative technologies, that weighs on the accounts of Bezos’ company. These efforts have been amply rewarded by the extraordinary results of the market. AWS is the world’s largest public cloud provider and in the fourth quarter of 2017 reported revenue growth of 45 percent to $17.46 billion. Overall, the corporate had a turnover of 60.5 billion.
This week at the AWS Summit in Sydney, Olivier Klein, head of emerging technologies in the Asia-Pacific region, said he wants to bring the power of machine learning into the hands of people – from data scientists and developers to IT professionals.
“Machine learning is now the new normal”
Oliver Klein
Increasing competition among cloud providers is expected to result in improvements in cloud-based AI services in 2018. This will be a boon for CIOs, among whom 21% are already experimenting with AI initiatives or have short-term plans, while another 25% say they have medium- to long-term plans, according to a global Gartner survey.
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