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By Deborah Mary Sophia

Feb 5 (Reuters) - The pressure is on Amazon.com to provide on lofty expectations for cloud computing in its fourth-quarter outcomes on Thursday, opensourcebridge.science after Microsoft and Google's uninspired reports jolted financier faith in Big Tech's billion-dollar investments in AI.

Shares of major tech companies rose in the past 2 years on the belief that massive datacenter requires for artificial-intelligence technologies would power investment for years.

But that was before Chinese start-up DeepSeek said it had actually attained AI developments at a portion of the expense, speeding up a selloff in technology stocks that some state was overdue.

Still, Amazon might be better positioned than rivals to capitalize on cheaper AI, analysts state, due to its huge cloud company and lower exposure to costly large-language models that power apps like ChatGPT.

Amazon Web Services, the world's largest cloud providers, is anticipated to publish its strongest revenue increase in eight quarters at 19.3%, according to data compiled by LSEG.

But Microsoft and Meta were both forced to protect their AI last week, and shares of Google-parent Alphabet plunged 8% on Wednesday after it said it would be spending more on capex than experts anticipated.

"Microsoft and Google outcomes have actually put much more of a microscopic lense on Amazon's cloud development," said Dave Wagner, portfolio supervisor at Aptus Capital Advisors, utahsyardsale.com which holds shares in all 3 innovation companies.

"But if Amazon can crush it on their cloud numbers, the market's going to absolutely enjoy that report."

The business was the first big cloud company to accept DeepSeek's AI models last month and has said its capital spending, mainly on AI, would be more than the $75 billion it estimated for 2024.

Slowing growth at Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, the 2nd- and third-biggest cloud gamers, has actually sparked some care from analysts about AWS' performance.

"Microsoft said it was capability constrained, Google said it was capability constrained. More than likely, Amazon is going to state it may have been capacity constrained also which's why its development rate isn't rather approximately what the marketplace may have expected," said Bob O'Donnell, primary analyst at TECHnalysis Research.

Some experts see the weak point at rivals as an indication that Amazon might have caught up in the AI race through efforts consisting of doubling its financial investment in Anthropic and offering a large selection of AI models on its cloud platform.

"We really think that AWS is regaining share. It had actually been growing a lot slower than Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud for a time period, however we think that as Amazon has actually caught up on its AI offering, it might have less of a deceleration than Azure and Google Cloud," D.A. Davidson expert Gil Luria said.

The company has actually maintained a higher appraisal than a few of its rivals, with an existing forward price-to-earnings ratio of nearly 39. Microsoft's forward P/E is 29 and Alphabet's 22.4, according to LSEG data.

RETAIL STRENGTH

The e-commerce giant's results are also most likely to gain from a healthy vacation shopping season, equipifieds.com after competing retailers such as Target and a variety of garments companies issued rosy forecasts over the previous month.

Amazon's North American sales for the fourth quarter are projected to increase 9% year-on-year. After a downturn in online sales development previously this year, analysts say Amazon is primed for a rebound in the retail organization, which has actually influenced its post-earnings share motions over the past 2 quarters.

Data from Adobe Analytics revealed U.S. shoppers splurged online between November and December 2024, spending more than $240 billion, drawn by deep discount rates on whatever from TVs to toys.

The holiday spending growth rate of 8.7% nearly doubled from the 4.9% taped in 2023, the information showed.

Amazon has also attempted to enhance delivery times and broadened product merchandise, including its concentrate on grocery, pharmacy and style - moves experts state will help propel growth.

"Most indicators are that it was an excellent quarter. There was a good vacation season for the customer therefore there's lots of reason to think Amazon will have succeeded because side of business," Luria said.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)