Amazon's third-quarter results, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 29, 2026, show the size of the company's AI infrastructure build in two numbers. Amazon Web Services grew segment sales 39% to $46.0 billion. Over the same three months, the company's cash flow statement records $77,259 million in purchases of property and equipment, against $35,095 million in the third quarter of 2025.
Amazon kept its full-year guidance unchanged. The release says the company "continue[s] to expect 2026 cash capital expenditures to be approximately $220 billion." On the earnings call, according to the Motley Fool transcript, management said Amazon expects to "spend meaningfully more in 2027."
For utilities, local officials and residents near proposed campuses, the most useful part of the quarter may be what Amazon said about how it plans power and land: large capacity blocks are reserved years before they are needed.
The Headline Numbers
According to the release (Exhibit 99.1 to the 8-K), net sales rose 12% to $201.9 billion. Operating income was $28.1 billion, up from $17.4 billion a year earlier, for an operating margin of 13.9%.
The release gives AWS growth two ways. AWS net sales grew 39.3% to an annualized run rate of $184 billion, and AWS segment sales grew 39% to $46.0 billion for the quarter. An independent summary of the release by datastudios.org reports AWS operating income of $17.8 billion, up from $11.4 billion.
Net income moved the other way. Datastudios.org reports net income of $20.7 billion, down from $21.2 billion, and notes that the prior-year figure included $9.5 billion in pre-tax gains on Amazon's investment in Anthropic. That one-time item explains why the year-over-year comparison looks weaker on net income than on operating income.
Where the Cash Went
The $77.3 billion in purchases of property and equipment is the gross figure from the cash flow statement. Net of $1,381 million in proceeds from sales and incentives, the quarter comes to $75.9 billion by subtraction, which matches the capex figure cited on the call, according to the Motley Fool transcript.
That spending shows up in free cash flow. The release reports trailing-twelve-month free cash flow of negative $42.4 billion. It says this was driven primarily by a $94.8 billion year-over-year increase in purchases of property and equipment, net of proceeds, which it says primarily reflects investments in artificial intelligence.
Amazon's release does not split that spending by category such as land, buildings, power equipment, servers or custom chips. It also does not say how much went to specific sites or regions. Readers following a particular campus should not assume a share of the quarterly total belongs to any one project.
How Amazon Says It Secures Capacity
The call commentary matters most for communities and power providers. According to the Motley Fool transcript, CEO Andy Jassy said big chunks of capacity, "the hundreds of megawatts or sometimes up to a gigawatt," are reserved well in advance. He said the company has very good visibility into 2027 and 2028 and some of 2029.
In practice, a site that enters a local permitting process or a utility interconnection queue may already be tied to capacity the company planned years earlier. The transcript does not name specific sites, utilities or counties, and it does not break the reserved capacity down by location.
The call summary also cites an AWS backlog of $578 billion. That figure comes from the transcript, not from the earnings release. Datastudios.org's headline repeats the number. A backlog reflects contracted future revenue. It is not a measure of capacity built or power secured.
Chips and Workloads
Two other call items help explain what the buildings are for. According to the transcript, inference (running trained models, as opposed to training them) now accounts for well over half of AWS's AI revenue. Management also said Amazon intends to offer its Trainium accelerators outside AWS late in 2027.
In the release, Jassy said AWS's investment "is working" and cited projected AWS revenue growth rates of over 40% in both 2027 and 2028. Datastudios.org notes that those projections are guidance, not results.
A $1 Billion Community Program
Among the quarter's highlights, the release announces Built Together, a $1 billion community investment in U.S. data center communities. The highlight lists priorities such as free community college and trades training, energy and water efficiency upgrades, and flexible annual funding for local priorities, but does not say which communities will take part, how the money will be distributed, or over what period. Local officials and residents in host jurisdictions will need those program details before they can judge what it means locally.
What the Quarter Does and Does Not Tell Us
The filings establish a few things. Amazon's quarterly equipment and property spending more than doubled from a year earlier. AWS revenue growth stayed near 40%. The company is willing to carry negative trailing free cash flow while it builds. And it reaffirmed a 2026 capex target of about $220 billion.
The filings do not establish which projects that money funds, how much new megawatt capacity it buys in a given year, or how Built Together will work in practice. The capacity-reservation remarks describe Amazon's planning approach. They are not commitments tied to particular sites.
What Happens Next
Amazon's stated guidance is cash capital expenditures of approximately $220 billion for full-year 2026, per the Oct. 29 release. Management said on the call that it expects to spend meaningfully more in 2027, and that it intends to offer Trainium outside AWS late in 2027, according to the Motley Fool transcript. The sources reviewed do not give a date for Amazon's fourth-quarter report or a timeline for Built Together awards.
