NEW YORK — Amazon.com Inc. shares surged nearly 15% on Friday, climbing $34.79 to $270.29, after the company reported second-quarter results that showed its cloud computing division accelerating at the fastest pace in more than four years, easing investor concerns that heavy spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure was not yet generating sufficient returns.

The rally, one of the stock's strongest single-day performances in years, added roughly $300 billion to Amazon's market value and helped lift broader technology indexes. Investors focused on robust demand at Amazon Web Services, the company's most profitable segment, rather than a higher capital expenditure forecast or a swing into negative free cash flow driven by AI investments.

Amazon reported net sales of $200.6 billion for the quarter ended June 30, up 20% from $167.7 billion a year earlier and above analysts' consensus estimates near $196 billion to $197 billion. Operating income rose 43% to $27.5 billion. Diluted earnings per share reached $5.75, far exceeding the roughly $1.82 Wall Street expected, though the figure included a large non-operating gain primarily from the mark-up of Amazon's investment in Anthropic.

The standout was Amazon Web Services. AWS revenue jumped 37% to $42.2 billion, or 36.7% on a year-over-year basis, marking the unit's strongest growth in 18 quarters and its fifth consecutive quarter of acceleration. The cloud business generated an annualized revenue run rate of $169 billion. Operating income for AWS climbed to $16.6 billion, producing a 39.4% operating margin, up substantially from the year-ago period.

Amazon said its AI and custom chips businesses each surpassed annualized revenue run rates of more than $25 billion, both growing at triple-digit percentages. The AWS contract backlog expanded to $496 billion.

"AWS is booming, growing 36.7% year-over-year in Q2 — our fastest growth in 18........

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