(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc's market capitalization topped $2 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, becoming the fifth U.S. company to surpass that mark as optimism about artificial intelligence and the possibility of interest rate cuts this year boosted demand for technology stocks.
Shares rose 3.4% to $192.70, giving the e-commerce giant a market capitalization of more than $2 trillion, putting it in line with tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia and Alphabet.
U.S. stock indexes have posted strong gains this year, fueled by continued enthusiasm for AI, optimism about the resilience of the U.S. economy and the possibility of interest rate easing by the Federal Reserve. [.N]
Wall Street was trading at record levels, mainly thanks to large-cap stocks such as Nvidia and Amazon, whose future cash flows are expected to benefit from low interest rates.
Amazon shares, which were added to the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average in February, have risen more than 26% this year. The company became the fifth-largest U.S. company by market capitalization in February after Nvidia jumped one spot.
Amazon Web Services is the world's largest cloud services provider, and growth at the Amazon division has bounced back from a decline over the past year thanks to a surge in adoption of AI technologies.
The firm has also invested in AI startup Anthropic and robotics company Figure, hoping to capitalize on the AI boom.
Late last year, Amazon unveiled a new generation of custom-designed chips for use in data centers, targeting machine learning training and generative artificial intelligence applications.
(Reporting by Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Akash Sriram; Editing by Shinjini Ganguly)
