Anthropic raises $4 billion from Amazon, boosting the e-commerce giant’s total investment in the AI startup to $8 billion

Just a day after reports surfaced that Anthropic is gaining market share against OpenAI, the AI startup announced on Friday it has secured an additional $4 billion investment from longtime backer Amazon, bringing Amazon’s total commitment to $8 billion. This move highlights the escalating interest of Big Tech in generative AI.

Amazon initially invested $1.25 billion in Anthropic in September and followed up with $2.75 billion in March, culminating in this latest funding round. Anthropic has also received significant backing from Alphabet, which invested $500 million last year and pledged an additional $1.5 billion over time.

“Today we’re announcing an expansion of our collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), deepening our work together to develop and deploy advanced AI systems. This expanded partnership includes a new $4 billion investment from Amazon and establishes AWS as our primary cloud and training partner. This will bring Amazon’s total investment in Anthropic to $8 billion, while maintaining their position as a minority investor,” Anthropic said on its website.

Britain’s competition regulator stated in September that Amazon’s partnership with Anthropic would not undergo a deeper probe as it does not fall under its jurisdiction.

Based in San Francisco, Anthropic has gained recognition for its advancements in generative AI, emerging as a strong competitor to industry leaders like OpenAI. Its flagship chatbot, Claude, has been gaining momentum, demonstrating impressive capabilities across various use cases.

As part of the new investment, Amazon will remain a minority stakeholder while its AWS unit becomes Anthropic’s official cloud provider. Anthropic is also collaborating with AWS’ Annapurna Labs to develop the next generation of Amazon’s Trainium chips and plans to train its foundational AI models using this hardware.

In a related development, Amazon recently introduced access to Anthropic’s AI models through its Bedrock service, allowing customers to leverage advanced computational tools. The Claude 3 family of models, known for their highly advanced reasoning and performance, is expected to set new standards in AI applications.

The rapid growth in generative AI, driven by platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has catapulted Anthropic into the spotlight. With support from major investors and leadership comprising seasoned AI experts, the company is well-positioned to influence the future of AI innovation.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives Dario Amodei (CEO), Daniela Amodei, Jack Clark, Sam McCandlish, and Tom Brown. Driven by the transformative potential of generative AI, Dario, and Daniela Amodei set out to create “large-scale AI systems that are steerable, interpretable, and robust.” Before launching Anthropic, Daniela Amodei served as OpenAI’s vice president of safety and policy.