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Amazon Increases $ 2.75 Billion Investment in Anthropic

CIO Insider Team | Thursday, 28 March, 2024
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Amazon has increased its $2.75 billion investment in Anthropic, a start-up that faces off against Google and OpenAI in the race to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

The investment makes San Francisco start-up Anthropic Amazon's most significant AI partner; coming six months after Amazon invested $1.25 billion in the company. At the time, Amazon stated that it may choose to increase its entire investment to $4 billion, according to reports.

Nevertheless, the extra funding demonstrates the massive amounts of money that major corporations are investing in artificial intelligence and highlights the amount of funding that Anthropic requires to be competitive.
Anthropic has sold off the majority of a contentious investor's holdings as it moves closer to Amazon. A federal judge approved the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX's sale of its Anthropic holding last week. $500 million, or roughly eight percent of the AI start-up, was funded in 2021 by FTX.

A team of academics from OpenAI, the company that developed the ChatGPT chatbot, founded Anthropic in 2021. Many of those researchers at the time expressed concern about OpenAI becoming more closely aligned with Microsoft in an eventual $13 billion deal.

Anthropic has been raising money continuously since it takes money to build the underlying infrastructure for generative AI, both in terms of hiring people and obtaining processing capacity.

However, Amazon's interest in Anthropic goes beyond a straightforward ownership position. It involves promises to supply processing power and access to AI systems, just like Microsoft's investment in OpenAI.

However, it doesn't cover the expensive purchases that can lead to an antitrust investigation. To find out if these kinds of big AI deals hurt competition, the Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation.

Customers of Amazon's cloud computing service will also have first access to Anthropic's AI models; last month, the company announced that Claude 3, one of the most potent anthropic models, is now accessible

Anthropic committed to employing Amazon-designed specialized computer chips to develop its AI as a fundamental component of the collaboration. According to Amazon, Anthropic will support its attempts to develop specialized chip designs and help it fulfill the cutting-edge requirements of artificial intelligence.

Customers of Amazon's cloud computing service will also have first access to Anthropic's AI models; last month, the company announced that Claude 3, one of the most ?potent anthropic models, is now accessible.

For $ 884 million, the bankruptcy estate of FTX consented to sell almost two-thirds of its start-up shares. ATIC Third International Investment Co., a company connected to a United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund, received the lion's share of the investment.

The charitable Ford Foundation and the quantitative trading company Jane Street were among the other purchasers. The foundation's president, Darren Walker, stated in an interview that he saw Anthropic as a significant rival to OpenAI.



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