AWS Community Workforce Accelerator (Noah Berger/Getty Images)

Amazon taps the brakes on AI data center spending as economic jitters spread

Wells Fargo says the cloud provider is “digesting” a wave of aggressive lease-ups.

4/22/25 10:21AM

Amazon, the largest US cloud provider, is quietly hitting pause on its AI infrastructure expansion as heated economic uncertainty pushes tech biggies to scrutinize their billion-dollar bets on AI.

In a note Monday, Wells Fargo said Amazon has paused some data center lease talks for its cloud division, especially overseas. The firm said that while Amazon isn’t canceling deals, it is “digesting” a wave of aggressive lease-ups. “They’re tightening pre-lease windows and being more selective with large power cluster leases through 2026,” analysts wrote.

Amazon pushed back against the suggestion of a shift, noting how its cloud rivals like Meta, Google, and Oracle are still active in the space. “This is routine capacity management,” AWS data center VP Kevin Miller wrote on LinkedIn. “No fundamental changes to our expansion plans.” Amazon Web Services announced in January that it will spend an additional $11 billion in Georgia on data centers to power its cloud-computing services.

Still, Amazon isn’t the only one trimming back. Last month, Microsoft scrapped data center projects totaling 2 gigawatts of power in the US and Europe, citing oversupply. And in February, Google dropped a $1 billion Texas lease for its data center ops.

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eBay stock slumps on gloomy Q4 outlook despite solid Q3 earnings

Shares of eBay fell as much as 10.5% in premarket trading on Thursday morning after the company gave a lower-than-expected profit forecast for the important holiday shopping season.

The e-commerce giant reported solid numbers for the third quarter on Wednesday, with revenue up 9% as reported to $2.8 billion and gross merchandise volume rising 10% to $20.1 billion, topping the average analyst forecast of $19.4 billion, per Bloomberg.

However, concerns about the future somewhat overshadowed these results.

eBay outlined its profit outlook for the period ending in December to $1.31 to $1.36 a share, with revenue at $2.83 billion to $2.89 billion. According to Bloomberg-compiled data, this broadly matches Wall Street’s estimates for the top line, but misses on the bottom line, with analysts forecasting EPS to come in at $1.39 — suggesting the company expects some further margin pressure.

The company has been facing macroeconomic challenges since the US ended the de minimis tariff exemption in late August, with the online marketplace reliant on shipments. One small silver lining? CFO Peggy Alford highlighted a “less durable trend” on a post-earnings call: that as commodity prices for precious metals boomed, demand for bullion and collectible coins on eBay spiked.