Amazon has announced that it will invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, a startup focused on building a generative AI chatbot. This investment comes after Anthropic received $300 million from Google last year, giving Google a 10% stake in the company. In its latest fundraising round in May, Anthropic was valued at nearly $5 billion. Amazon’s investment will provide Anthropic with not only a significant infusion of cash but also access to tools for AI developers and products that Amazon is developing, including computing chips, large language models, and cloud computing capabilities under Amazon Web Services.
The partnership between Amazon and Anthropic is more than just a financial investment. Amazon’s AI chips, developed to compete with Nvidia’s dominance in the market, will be used by Anthropic. Amazon’s Inferentia chips will help run the models, and the majority of Anthropic’s work will be done on the AWS cloud. Amazon and Anthropic have already been working together since the spring, with Anthropic making its models available through Amazon’s Bedrock service. The two companies will continue to collaborate to help AWS customers develop their own generative AI applications.
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by siblings Daniela and Dario Amodei, is known for its Claude generative AI assistant, which can ask clarifying questions if it doesn’t understand a prompt. The company operates on a freemium model, offering a free basic version of its chatbot and a more powerful version for a monthly fee. With Amazon’s investment and access to its AI-specific tools, Anthropic aims to further enhance its offerings and expand its customer base.