— This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on November 22, Wednesday.
Amazon's cloud business AWS, in its march toward $20 billion in annual revenue, has attracted clients in various areas, ranging from energy to technology; from financial services to government.
Now, the department has found a partner to help the company crack a massive industry that's been slower to adopt the cloud: health care.
The tech giant is going to announce that Amazon is teaming up with Cerner, one of the world's largest health technology companies, to help health-care providers better use their data to make health predictions about patient populations. Analysts said Cerner provides a "source of comfort" to potential customers in the industry. Cerner generates about $5 billion in annual sales, controls a quarter of the electronic medical records market and is working to help modernize the health records systems of organizations as vast as the Department of Defense.
Relative to most industries, hospitals and other health providers have resisted the shift from traditional data centers to the cloud because of security concerns around sensitive health information and the strict federal rules that govern how that data is stored and shared. In recent years, the leading cloud infrastructure providers have all invested in recruiting health experts. And AWS has taken steps to protect health information so that its services can meet the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Microsoft, whose Azure cloud is second in market share to AWS, recently rejiggered its sales organization to focus more on six industries, including health care. The website for Google's cloud highlights some health-care customers, including contractor Northrop Grumman and the National Institute on Aging.
In addition to pulling in electronic medical records, HealtheIntent accesses data sources like prescription information and insurance claims. From there, it can make recommendations to health providers for things like matching patients to the right medications or identifying people that are at the highest risk.
Cerner's shares went up by more than 5% due to the news.
While Amazon was also traded up by nearly 1..5%. Morgan Stanley has given Amazon a target price of 1250 dollars per share.
CNBC's Qian Chen, reporting from Singapore.