Amazon paused some talks over data center leasing, Wells Fargo says
Investing.com-- Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN ) has paused some talks to lease data center capacity for its Web Division, pointing to some slowdown in demand among major artificial intelligence spenders, Wells Fargo said in a Monday note.
The investment bank said that Amazon Web Services (AWS) had paused a portion of its leasing discussion for data center capacity, particularly in international markets, although it was not clear just what the magnitude of the pause was.
The news on AWS comes just a week after Microsoft- another major AI spender- said it was slowing down its pace of building more data center capacity, sparking fears that there was a supply glut in the AI-linked sector.
Wells Fargo noted that AWS and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) were the two largest AI “hyperscalers” in the market, and that this trend pointed to some moderation in data center demand.
“It’s not clear yet whether AWS slowing some leases is an area of concern, of just the natural ebbs and flows of hyperscale activity,” Wells Fargo analysts said in a note.
But they also noted that even though AWS and Microsoft were slowing data center investment, other major hyperscalers- Meta (NASDAQ: META ), Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL ), and Oracle- all remained active, while plans for an aggressive data center buildout under OpenAI and Softbank’s Project Stargate remained in play.
Still, any slowing in server investment by Wall Street’s AI hyperscalers points to softer demand for AI chips and server makers such as Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA ).
Amazon had earlier this year signaled that it could spend more than $100 billion on AI infrastructure in 2025.