The American technology and search engine giant, Google is all set to invest $2 billion in AI startup Anthropic.
Google Investing In AI Firm Anthropic
Being the OpenAI rival, Anthropic is an AI safety and research company based in San Francisco.
Notably, this latest investment is separate from Google’s $550 million investment in Anthropic earlier this year, as per the reports.
This new Amazon investment is structured as a convertible note, a type of debt that can be converted into equity in the next round of funding, according to the media reports.
Moving ahead, the report notes that Google has already invested $500 million in the company and has committed to investing a further $1.5 billion in the future.
Besides Google’s latest round of investment in Anthropic, the tech giant had already signed a Google Cloud deal worth over $3 billion.
In addition to this, Anthropic has also signed a multi-year deal with Google Cloud worth more than $3 billion, the report noted.
This deal was signed a few months prior to the new investment.
Amazon Investing In AI
Amazon seems to have pledged to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic as it seeks to compete with other cloud companies in AI.
Amazon had noted that it had invested $1.25 billion in the AI startup.
This further can be converted into equity, and its ability to invest $2.75 billion in a second note expires in the first quarter of 2024, in a quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission this week.
Interestingly, Anthropic’s founders, siblings Dario and Dniela Amodei, worked as engineers at OpenAI before launching their own company in 2021.
Earlier media reported that the siblings had a dispute with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the safe development of artificial intelligence.
Previously, Anthropic was funded by FTX’s Sam Bankman Fried.
Although, after the crypto exchange’s famous failure, Anthropic sought other investors.
This included cloud giants such as Amazon and Google, as well as traditional Silicon Valley investors such as Spark Capital and Menlo Ventures.
Anthropic operates a generative AI-based chatbot called Claude similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which needs billions of dollars to train more advanced versions of its AI system.
Considering the same, the AI firm has secured $7 billion in funding this year alone.
