Amazon’s 2026 capital expenditure trajectory remains the dominant driver of trader sentiment, with management lifting full-year guidance to $220 billion in late July after initially targeting $200 billion in February—well above the roughly $146 billion consensus at the time. Roughly 80 percent of the spend supports AWS AI infrastructure, data centers, custom silicon, and memory chips amid surging generative AI demand that produced 37 percent AWS revenue growth in the second quarter. Elevated memory costs and capacity constraints prompted the $20 billion upward revision, while trailing twelve-month property and equipment purchases reached $169 billion. Free cash flow has turned negative on the accelerated build-out, heightening focus on monetization timelines ahead of the next earnings release. Traders weigh the risk of additional increases against AWS’s accelerating run rate and historical precedent for hyperscale returns on invested capital.