Amazon is weighing another multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic to deepen a strategic alliance that the tech companies believe will provide an edge in the global competition to profit from artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
The Seattle-based cloud and ecommerce group has discussed plans to extend beyond the $8bn it has already ploughed into the San Francisco-based AI<\/a> model builder, according to multiple people with knowledge of the talks. <\/p>\n A new deal would further a relationship that \u2014 according to interviews with more than a dozen Amazon and Anthropic executives, board members and investors \u2014 has become vital to both their futures. <\/p>\n The investment will ensure Amazon<\/a> remains one of Anthropic\u2019s largest shareholders, as it seeks to position ahead of Google which has also invested more than $3bn, while providing a bulwark against a similar multibillion dollar partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI.<\/p>\n It would also deepen ties as the pair collaborate on one of the world\u2019s largest data centre projects and team up on sales of Anthropic<\/a>\u2019s technology to Amazon\u2019s cloud computing customers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe quickly realised that we had many shared goals that were fundamentally critical,\u201d said Dan Grossman, vice-president of worldwide corporate development at Amazon. \u201cThe size of the [existing investment] represents our ambition.\u201d <\/p>\n The strategy of close alignment comes with risks. Microsoft\u2019s $14bn investment into OpenAI helped the duo take an early lead in the race to commercialise AI products, but that alliance is under strain<\/a> because of the ChatGPT maker\u2019s desire to move to a for-profit model. <\/p>\n Anthropic was founded in 2021 by seven former OpenAI staff including siblings Daniela and Dario Amodei who left over ethical and safety concerns. It was initially a cloud computing customer before Amazon made a $1.25bn investment in September 2023.<\/p>\n The Amazon deal ensured Anthropic had a \u201creliable source of compute and investment\u201d at a time when Microsoft was locked into an agreement with OpenAI that would have precluded it from acting as a partner, according to one of the Seattle-based group\u2019s executives. <\/p>\n In June, Amazon outlined the scale of its first site for \u201cProject Rainier\u201d, a large-scale data centre programme that will help meet Anthropic\u2019s computing demands. Filled with the cloud providers\u2019 Trainium2 chips, the facilities in New Carlisle, Indiana will draw 2.2 gigawatts in power when completed, far surpassing the scale of Oracle\u2019s<\/a> ambitious 1.2GW campus for OpenAI in Abilene, Texas. <\/p>\n Amazon detailed at least $11bn in investment for a cluster of 16 data centres in Indiana last year, but plans for the site have since doubled. <\/p>\n Mike Krieger, Anthropic\u2019s chief product officer, said it had worked \u201creally closely\u201d with Amazon to ensure that the Big Tech group\u2019s Trainium2 chips were suitable for its models. \u201cThe ability to have Amazon, who is developing their own chips and has the knowhow and expertise, open to our requirements, is massive,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n The two companies are already discussing plans for future sites attached to Project Rainier. \u201cThe goal is to always be way ahead of what your customers are going to need,\u201d said David Brown, vice-president of compute at Amazon Web Services. \u201cI call it the illusion of infinite capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n While Amazon is developing its own in-house foundation models, it has sought closer ties to Anthropic than Google, which is focused on building its own powerful AI models called Gemini.<\/p>\n The \u201cfair value\u201d of Amazon\u2019s investment in Anthropic is about $13.8bn, according to regulatory filings. Its backing came in the form of convertible notes, with only a portion turned into equity so far. <\/p>\n Both tech giants\u2019 stakes are capped to keep them well below owning more than a third of Anthropic. They each have no voting rights, board seats or board observer seats. Google owns roughly 14 per cent, according to legal filings. <\/p>\n Anthropic\u2019s most recent equity valuation is $61.5bn, set by investors in March, according to PitchBook.<\/p>\n Amazon has made other investments in AI companies, including Hugging Face and Scale AI, but Anthropic is its third-largest investment to date behind MGM Studios and Whole Food Markets. <\/p>\n Executives at the Seattle-based group are confident that the partnership with Anthropic would be more robust than Microsoft and OpenAI, as the start-up was structured as a public benefit corporation rather than a non-profit. Investors hold equity, unlike with OpenAI where they are beholden to a complex profit share agreement. <\/p>\n Anthropic has previously said that it is \u201cnot owned or dominated by a single tech giant\u201d and has chosen to remain independent. <\/p>\n Yet, Amazon has manoeuvred itself to be named Anthropic\u2019s primary cloud and training partner. <\/p>\n The model builder counts on Amazon\u2019s data centres and its specialised Trainium semiconductor chips to develop and deploy large language models. However, Anthropic also uses Google\u2019s custom AI accelerator chip \u2014 a Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) called Trillium. <\/p>\n Claude, meanwhile, is embedded in Amazon products such as its improved digital voice assistant Alexa+ and streaming service Prime Video. <\/p>\n One Anthropic investor said Amazon\u2019s salespeople more clearly promoted the start-up\u2019s Claude series of models to its cloud computing customers than search giant Google. <\/p>\n