Amazon has announced an investment of up to $4 billion in the AI startup Anthropic, marking a significant move in its competition against tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Nvidia in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. The e-commerce leader will initially invest $1.25 billion for a minority stake in Anthropic, known for its AI-powered chatbot, similar to offerings from Google’s Bard and Microsoft-backed OpenAI. As part of this strategic partnership, Amazon retains the option to increase its investment to a total of $4 billion.
Earlier this year,Anthropic, which also has Google among its investors, seeks to raise up to $5 billion over the next two years. Recently, Anthropic launched its first consumer-facing premium subscription for its chatbot, Claude 2, and is developing a groundbreaking model called "Claude-Next," aimed to be ten times more powerful than current AI systems, according to information from a 2023 investor deck.
However, achieving this ambitious goal will come with a hefty price tag, as Anthropic estimates it will require $1 billion in funding over the next 18 months. To date, Microsoft has invested approximately $11 billion in OpenAI.
With Amazon, Anthropic gains a financially robust strategic partner capable of delivering essential computing power to facilitate the development of future AI models while also accessing a vast network of cloud customers for promoting their offerings. Under this investment agreement, Anthropic will leverage Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud provider for critical projects, including safety research and future model development. Additionally, Anthropic will utilize AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips in building and deploying its advanced models, having been an AWS customer since 2021.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy expressed optimism about the collaboration, emphasizing that it aims to enhance customer experiences in both the short and long term.
“Customers are showing great enthusiasm for Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s managed service designed for building generative AI applications, alongside AWS Trainium, our AI training chip. Partnering with Anthropic will enable customers to derive even greater value from these technologies,” Jassy noted.
Anthropic, which counts notable investors including Spark Capital, Salesforce, Sound Ventures, Menlo Ventures, and Zoom, has raised a total of $2.7 billion so far. In May, it was valued at approximately $5 billion following a $450 million funding round. Details about Amazon's specific valuation of Anthropic in this new investment have not been disclosed.
Through this partnership, Amazon strengthens its position in the burgeoning AI sector, allowing it to consolidate resources and talent in this competitive field.
Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei shared insights into the company's technological advancements. “Over the last decade, we’ve experienced remarkable growth in the scale at which we train neural networks, and this trend continues to yield better performance,” he explained. “In the coming years, what we see today will look trivial in comparison.”
Anthropic is committed to offering AWS customers access to its future foundation models via Amazon Bedrock, providing a fully managed service for securely utilizing top foundational AI models. Moreover, Anthropic plans to grant AWS users early access to exclusive features for customizing and fine-tuning AI models.
“Developing cutting-edge models necessitates considerable resources, including computational power and innovative research. Amazon’s investment and the provision of AWS Trainium and Inferentia technology will empower us to push the frontiers of AI safety and research,” Anthropic stated. “We are eager to collaborate closely with Amazon to responsibly promote the adoption of Claude and deliver secure AI technologies to organizations worldwide.”
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