Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform developed by Amazon that provides a wide range of on-demand services, including computing power, storage, databases, networking, artificial intelligence, and security. Instead of purchasing and maintaining physical servers, individuals and businesses can use AWS to build, deploy, and manage applications over the internet while paying only for the resources they use. AWS is widely used by startups, enterprises, educational institutions, and government organizations because of its scalability, reliability, and global infrastructure. Popular AWS services include Amazon EC2 for virtual servers, Amazon S3 for cloud storage, and Amazon RDS for managed databases, making it one of the most trusted cloud platforms in the world.