Amazon Considers Multibillion-Dollar Investment in Anthropic, Pushing for Adoption of Its AI Chips

Amazon eyeing 'multibillion-dollar' investment in Claude-maker Anthropic -- here's why it's a big deal

Amazon is reportedly in talks to expand its investment in AI startup Anthropic, potentially injecting additional billions into the company as part of its aggressive push into the AI sector. According to The Information, the deal with the Claude chatbot maker hinges on a key condition: Anthropic must adopt Amazon-developed chips for training its AI models, a shift from its current reliance on Nvidia-designed hardware. This potential investment builds on Amazon's existing $4 billion stake in Anthropic, which it completed in March 2024. As part of the previous deal, Anthropic agreed to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud provider and provide early access to its AI models for AWS customers. Amazon has invested heavily in developing its AI chip capabilities to compete with Nvidia, the dominant player in the AI space. The tech giant unveiled its next-generation Graviton4 and Trainium2 chip families at its 2023 AWS re:invent conference, promoting them as faster and more cost-effective options for AI workloads. Anthropic currently uses Nvidia chips for AI training, but Amazon's condition could compel the startup to transition to its in-house silicon, including the AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips. It would also help raise awareness of Amazon's offering. Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei, Anthropic has established itself as a competitor to OpenAI with its Claude AI model. The startup recently debuted an AI agent designed to perform complex, autonomous tasks on computers. With scaling AI operations requiring significant capital, Amazon's offer could provide critical support for Anthropic's growth, despite potential friction over hardware requirements. To date, Anthropic has raised approximately $9.7 billion, with other notable backers including Google parent Alphabet, which invested $500 million upfront and pledged an additional $1.5 billion. Anthropic's current valuation reportedly hovers around $40 billion, reflecting growing interest in generative AI technologies. Amazon's deepening involvement with Anthropic could attract regulatory scrutiny, particularly in the U.K., where the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has expressed concerns over the concentration of power among a few key AI players. In August 2024, the CMA launched an investigation into Amazon's funding of Anthropic, although it ultimately cleared the $4 billion investment in September, stating it did not meet the threshold for an in-depth merger review. If this new deal materializes, it may reignite regulatory concerns, especially as Amazon strengthens its foothold in the AI ecosystem, a space already dominated by a handful of tech giants, including Microsoft and Google. This investment supports Amazon's broader strategy to secure a leadership role in AI by integrating its cloud services and proprietary chips into the workflows of major AI startups. AWS has already positioned itself as a key player in the cloud AI market, with services like Amazon Bedrock facilitating the development of generative AI applications. For Amazon, success in this endeavor would not only boost its AI credentials but also enhance the appeal of AWS to enterprise customers seeking advanced AI capabilities. As competition in the AI sector intensifies, this move underscores Amazon's determination to shape the future of generative AI.

Report Says Amazon May Be Negotiating New Anthropic Investment | PYMNTS.com

Amazon is reportedly in talks to make a second multibillion-dollar investment in artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic, mirroring its initial $4 billion deal from March 27. As reported Thursday (Nov. 7) by The Information's Anissa Gardizy, this deal could have a catch. The report said Amazon is pushing for Anthropic to use a significant number of servers powered by Amazon's own AI chips, known as Trainium. This request comes as Anthropic currently prefers using Amazon servers equipped with Nvidia-designed AI chips. The final investment amount, The Information says, could hinge on the number of Amazon chips Anthropic agrees to incorporate, highlighting the complex dynamics between cloud providers and AI developers. As the article points out the negotiations -- no word on how far along they've progressed -- underscore the competing priorities within AI alliances, reminiscent of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership that has faced recent challenges. For Amazon, promoting its Trainium chips could reduce reliance on Nvidia hardware and potentially lower costs, the report said. However, Anthropic may face technical hurdles in adopting Amazon's chip technology, as the associated software is less mature than Nvidia's widely used Cuda platform. Additionally, such a shift could potentially limit Anthropic's flexibility in using other cloud providers or leasing its own data centers in the future, as the report said Amazon's hardware is not available in facilities operated by other companies. Amazon made its initial $1.25 billion investment in Anthropic in September 2023 and then upped it to $4 billion in March. "Anthropic's visionary work with generative AI, most recently the introduction of its state-of-the-art Claude 3 family of models, combined with Amazon's best-in-class infrastructure like AWS Trainium and managed services like Amazon Bedrock further unlocks exciting opportunities for customers to quickly, securely and responsibly innovate with generative AI," Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of data and AI at Amazon Web Services (AWS), said in the release announcing the deal at that time. As part of that agreement, Anthropic used AWS as its primary cloud provider, Anthropic used AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips for its future AI models and made "a long-term commitment to provide AWS customers with access to future generations of its foundation models on AWS' fully managed service, Amazon Bedrock," the release said.

Amazon may up its investment in Anthropic -- on one condition | TechCrunch

Amazon is considering increasing its investment in OpenAI rival Anthropic. According to The Information, Amazon is in talks to invest multiple billions in Anthropic, its first financial pledge in the company since a $4 billion deal struck last year. The new investment is structured similar to the last one -- but with a twist. Amazon wants Anthropic to use Amazon-developed silicon hosted on Amazon Web Services to train its AI. Anthropic prefers Nvidia chips. But the money may be too good to pass up. Around the start of the year, Anthropic reportedly projected it would burn through over $2.7 billion in 2024 as it trained and scaled up its AI products. Anthropic has for several months been discussing new funding at a $40 billion valuation, per The Information, and no doubt the pressure is on to clinch something soon. To date, Anthropic has raised $9.7 billion -- close to half of OpenAI's $21.9 billion haul.

After OpenAI And Perplexity, AI Startup Anthropic May Secure Another Massive Investment -- Amazon Reportedly Considers Major Funding - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN is reportedly contemplating its second multi-billion-dollar investment in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, which leverages its cloud services for training. What Happened: Following its initial $4 billion investment last year, the e-commerce giant is now planning investment in the startup co-founded by former OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei, reported The Information, citing a person familiar with the discussion. The Andy Jassy-led company has reportedly asked Anthropic to use a significant number of servers powered by chips developed by the cloud computing giant. See Also: Mark Cuban Says He Would Buy Rupert Murdoch's Fox News And Elon Musk's X But There Are Some Obstacles: 'If I Had Enough... I'd Buy It In A Heartbeat' However, Anthropic reportedly prefers to use Amazon servers powered by Nvidia Corporation NVDA designed AI chips. Last year, Anthropic also secured a $500 million investment from Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL, which pledged to invest an additional $1.5 billion over time. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Why It Matters: Amazon's initial $4 billion investment in Anthropic faced scrutiny from U.K. regulators over anti-competitive concerns. Last month, U.K. antitrust officials also launched an investigation into whether Alphabet Inc.'s investment in AI startup Anthropic could stifle competition. Meanwhile, AI startups have been attracting significant investments. OpenAI's valuation soared to $157 billion following a funding round. Perplexity, backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also reportedly saw its valuation triple to $9 billion in its fourth funding round. Price Action: Amazon shares closed Thursday's session up 1.48% at $210.16. In after-hours trading, the tech giant's shares rose slightly further, reaching $210.27 at the time of writing, according to Benzinga Pro data. Photo: gguy/Shutterstock.com Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Read Next: 'AI Haves Vs. Have-Nots': Palantir's Ryan Taylor Outlines Company's Winning Strategy Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs