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Amazon’s R&D spending is poised to top the GDP of Iceland

By Dave Gershgorn
Published

Amazon already makes as much revenue as a small country. Now the company’s R&D spending has gotten so aggressive that it, too, rivals the economy of a nation.

Amazon has ramped its research and development spending in the last decade, growing it from $1.2 billion in 2009 to $22.6 billion in 2017. In that time, the company has released products like the Echo smart speaker, Fire TV, and a variety of artificial-intelligence tools for Amazon Web Services.

The R&D spending spree showed no signs of slowing this year. The amount spent by Amazon on R&D in 2018 is poised to surpass the GDP of Iceland.

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