Anthropic enters talks with Samsung to develop custom AI chip, challenging Nvidia's dominance

Anthropic is discussing a new custom chip with Samsung

Back in April, Reuters reported that Anthropic was toying with the idea of producing its own AI chips as a means of responding to chip shortages. Now, it would appear that the company is getting serious about this idea. On Thursday, The Information reported that Anthropic was in contact with Samsung to explore a collaboration around the pending chip. However, Anthropic hasn't yet decided what the chip will be used for, how it will fit into the server, or how powerful it will be, according to the report. When reached for comment, Anthropic told TechCrunch that a diversified hardware stack that includes chips from Google, Amazon, and Nvidia will continue to be pivotal to its compute strategy. On the topic of a potential Samsung partnership, the company said it had nothing further to add. A number of AI companies have sought to develop custom chips -- both as a way to create unique hardware for specific compute tasks and to gain a certain amount of independence from Nvidia, which continues to be the undisputed leader of the chip industry. Anthropic's announcement may also be a response to one made last week by its key competitor, OpenAI, which has teamed up with Broadcom to announce its own custom built inference processor, dubbed "Jalapeño." OpenAI says that the chip is more efficient, demonstrating better performance-per-watt, than other competitor chips. Amazon and Google both offer custom-built TPUs as part of their cloud offering. Samsung is already embedded in the AI industry, and acts as a major partner of Nvidia, producing chips that the company needs to train or run its AI models. In turn, Samsung uses Nvidia's software to manufacture its chips. The duo are working on an AI chip factory in South Korea. Samsung has also discussed partnering with Google on its chip-making efforts.

Anthropic is in talks with Samsung to manufacture a custom AI chip

Anthropic is discussing a custom AI chip with Samsung, though the project is early-stage and no design has been finalized. Anthropic is in talks with Samsung Electronics to explore manufacturing a custom AI chip, The Information reported on Thursday. The project remains at an early stage, and Anthropic has not yet decided what the chip would be used for, how powerful it would be, or how it would fit into a server, according to the report. The company could still abandon the effort entirely. When asked for comment, Anthropic told TechCrunch that a diversified hardware stack including chips from Google, Amazon, and Nvidia will continue to be central to its compute strategy, and said it had nothing further to add on the Samsung discussions. Samsung already plays a significant role in the AI chip supply chain as a major manufacturing partner for Nvidia, producing chips that power AI training and inference workloads. The two companies are also building an AI chip factory together in South Korea. The talks follow a Reuters report in April that Anthropic was exploring the idea of building its own chips as Claude's compute demands outpaced available supply. At the time, the effort was described as preliminary, with no dedicated team assembled and no commitment to a specific design. What has changed since April is that Anthropic has hired Clive Chan, who previously helped build OpenAI's custom chip programme, a signal that the company is moving from exploration to active development. The timing also coincides with a move by Anthropic's main competitor. Last week, OpenAI unveiled its first custom chip, a Broadcom-built inference processor it calls the "Intelligence Processor," designed to reduce the company's dependence on Nvidia hardware. Amazon and Google both already offer their own custom silicon through their cloud platforms, and Anthropic currently runs Claude across all three chip families. Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate surpassed 30 billion dollars earlier this year, more than tripling from roughly nine billion dollars at the end of 2025, a growth rate that makes the economics of custom silicon increasingly attractive. The company signed a long-term deal with Google and Broadcom in April for roughly three and a half gigawatts of TPU compute starting in 2027, but designing its own chips would give it an additional layer of control over the hardware that runs its models. Whether Samsung or another manufacturer ultimately builds a chip for Anthropic remains an open question, but the direction of travel across the industry, away from total reliance on Nvidia, is now unmistakable.

Anthropic in talks with Samsung to develop custom AI chip

AI giant Anthropic is reportedly exploring the creation of its own custom AI chips, holding talks with Samsung for a potential partnership. This move aims to reduce reliance on external suppliers and address ongoing chip shortages, following similar moves by rivals like OpenAI, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta. Anthropic is exploring the development of its own artificial intelligence (AI) chip and has held discussions with Samsung over a potential partnership, according to The Information. The report said the company is still in the early stages of planning and has not yet decided what the chip will be used for, how it will fit into its servers, or how powerful it will be. The move is not entirely new. Reuters had reported back in April that Anthropic was considering building its own AI chips to reduce dependence on external suppliers and address persistent chip shortages. Currently, Anthropic relies on a mix of processors to train and run its models, including Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) developed by Google and chips from Amazon for its chatbot, Claude. In April, Anthropic signed a long-term agreement with Google and Broadcom to gain access to around 3.5 gigawatts (GW) of AI computing capacity powered by Google's TPUs, starting in 2027. Anthropic is not alone in pursuing custom chips. AI companies are increasingly designing their own processors to reduce reliance on Nvidia, which continues to dominate the chip market, while also optimising hardware for specific workloads. The development comes as its biggest rival OpenAI introduced Jalapeño, its first in-house AI inference chip, last month. Built with Broadcom and manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the chip is designed for AI inference -- when a trained model generates responses to user prompts. It will initially be used within OpenAI's own infrastructure rather than sold commercially. Other technology companies have taken a similar approach. Amazon has developed the Trainium and Inferentia chip families for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Microsoft has introduced the Maia AI accelerator for Azure, while Meta continues expanding its Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) chips for recommendation systems and generative AI. The push towards custom chips is largely driven by economics. Training advanced AI models requires enormous computing power, but serving millions of user requests after deployment is even more expensive because every chatbot query or AI-generated response consumes additional computing resources. According to Reuters, designing a cutting-edge AI chip can cost around $500 million, as companies need specialist engineering talent and extensive manufacturing checks to ensure defect-free production.

Anthropic quietly joins the race to build its own chips

Anthropic has opened early talks with Samsung Electronics to manufacture a custom AI chip, according to a report from Bloomberg. The Claude developer has never built its own silicon before. It has relied entirely on chips rented from Amazon, Google, and Nvidia, and that dependence is now colliding with the soaring cost of running its largest models. The conversations are still preliminary. Anthropic has not decided what the chip will do, how it will fit into a server, or how powerful it needs to be, according to TechCrunch. Samsung declined to comment on the discussions when TechCrunch reached out. Anthropic looks beyond Nvidia for its next chip Anthropic currently depends on Amazon's Trainium chips, Google's Tensor Processing Units, and Nvidia's graphics processors to train and run its models. A diversified hardware stack built on those three suppliers will remain central to its compute strategy, the company told TechCrunch. Nothing about the Samsung talks changes that today. Nvidia controls about 74% of the global AI chip market, according to The Information. That level of concentration gives one company outsized influence over pricing across the industry. Custom silicon, designed around a lab's own model architecture, offers one of the only ways around that math. Anthropic is not moving first. OpenAI unveiled its own custom chip last month, an inference processor called Jalapeno built with Broadcom. Anthropic's Samsung talks surfacing weeks later suggest the industry is quietly hedging against Nvidia dependence. For investors, the read-through lands on the supply side, not on Anthropic itself. Anthropic remains privately held, so there is no direct way to buy into its chip strategy. The companies that stand to gain or lose are the ones building the hardware underneath it. Yuichiro Chino / Getty Images Samsung brings more than manufacturing capacity to the table Samsung is not a random choice for Anthropic. The company was one of three memory chipmakers, alongside SK Hynix and Micron, that invested in Anthropic's $65 billion funding round in May, according to Forbes. Samsung is the only one of those three investors that also operates its own chip foundries. Anthropic is specifically evaluating Samsung's two-nanometer manufacturing process and its advanced chip packaging facilities, according to The Information. Winning a marquee AI client would give Samsung a showcase customer as it works to close the gap with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the industry's dominant foundry. Samsung Electronics trades in the U.S. as an over-the-counter stock under the ticker SSNLF. The shares are thinly traded compared to a listed peer like TSM, but the company's foundry division is the part of the business investors watch most closely for signs it can finally challenge TSMC's lead. A few additional data points fill out the picture: * Google is separately weighing Samsung for part of a future Tensor Processing Unit, according to Reuters, a decision that would mark another win for Samsung's contract manufacturing business. * A combined $520 billion investment from Samsung Group and SK Group was confirmed this month to build four new memory chip plants in South Korea, the Wall Street Journal reported. * Clive Chan, a former member of OpenAI's chip design team, has joined Anthropic to help build its internal hardware expertise, Data Center Dynamics noted. The gap between early talks and a finished chip remains wide Samsung has historically struggled to match TSMC's production yields at the most advanced process nodes, a gap analysts have raised repeatedly. A signed customer is not a shipped chip, and Anthropic has not committed to using Samsung for anything. The company is still deciding whether to proceed at all, according to Bloomberg. Anthropic is also talking to Microsoft and the U.K. startup Fractile about potential chips, The Information reported. That points to a competitive process rather than a single partner. Losing this deal would cost Samsung little beyond a missed opportunity, while winning it would validate a foundry business still trying to prove it belongs in the same conversation as TSMC. The chip industry's balance of power is shifting Anthropic and OpenAI are chasing the same goal from different directions, and neither is abandoning Nvidia to get there. What is changing is the assumption that AI labs must accept whatever pricing and supply terms Nvidia sets. Microsoft has its own Maia chips, Amazon has Trainium, and Google has TPUs. The newest AI labs are now trying to build that same leverage for themselves. For Samsung, the stakes reach beyond one contract. A foundry win with a major AI lab would be the clearest signal yet that its advanced manufacturing can compete with TSMC on merit, not just on price. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. This story was originally published July 3, 2026 at 5:03 PM.

Anthropic explores Samsung 2nm chip partnership - The Information By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Anthropic has begun early-stage work on a custom AI chip and held talks with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KS:005930) as a potential manufacturing partner, according to The Information, a development that sharpens competitive pressure on NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), which currently holds an estimated 74% share of the AI chip market. Analyze this news by upgrading to InvestingPro - get 60% off today For publicly traded chip stocks, the implications cut across multiple names. Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO) already has skin in the custom-silicon game as OpenAI's chip design partner, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM) faces a direct competitive threat to its foundry dominance if Samsung wins a marquee AI client like Anthropic. The Information reported that Anthropic is specifically considering Samsung's 2-nanometer manufacturing process and the Korean conglomerate's advanced packaging facilities. The project is still nascent, as no detailed design or manufacturing work has begun, and the company may not proceed, but The Information noted that Anthropic recently brought on Clive Chan, an early member of OpenAI's own custom chip team, as part of a deliberate engineering buildout. The move mirrors a well-worn playbook among AI labs. OpenAI tapped Broadcom to design its own silicon in 2024 and unveiled the first product of that collaboration last month: an inference chip called Jalapeño, built to run large-language models more efficiently. Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft have all taken similar steps to develop proprietary silicon and reduce their dependence on third-party suppliers. Nvidia, despite the competitive noise, has not surrendered ground. The Information's own estimates put the company's AI chip market share at 74%, higher than it was before the inference-chip arms race began. NVDA shares are 0.7% higher in morning trade. AVGO, which stands to be a direct read-through given its existing custom chip design revenue from OpenAI, is also up 0.7% in today's session. TSM, as the industry's gold standard for cutting-edge AI processors, faces a longer-term question about whether Samsung can credibly close the gap on advanced node yields, a concern analysts have repeatedly raised, given Samsung's historical struggles with leading-edge process ramp-ups relative to TSMC's N2 node. Investors seem unconcerned, however, as TSM stock has gained 3.5% in today's session. Samsung's foundry ambitions are getting support from multiple directions, according to The Information. Google is separately considering using Samsung for part of a future tensor processing unit, which would represent another significant win for Samsung's contract manufacturing business. The news comes after Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron all participated in Anthropic's $65 billion May fundraising round. Earlier in the week, Samsung Group and SK Group, parent companies of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, announced a decade-long combined investment of $518 billion to build four memory-chip plants in South Korea, a commitment that underscores the scale of capital being deployed across the Korean chip ecosystem as it competes for AI infrastructure mandates. Anthropics' chip ambitions do not appear designed to replace its existing partnerships. In a statement provided to The Information, the company said that "Amazon Web Services's Trainium chip, Google tensor processing units and Nvidia graphic processors will remain central to how the company scales its compute strategy," declining to elaborate further on its roadmap. The Information also reported that Anthropic is in discussions to use chips from Microsoft and from U.K.-based startup Fractile, reinforcing a deliberate multi-vendor approach rather than a pivot away from established suppliers. For chip investors, the key forward-looking question is whether Samsung can convert these early conversations into production wins. Any confirmed Anthropic foundry agreement would be a material positive for Samsung's foundry revenue outlook and increase competition with TSMC's near-monopoly on leading-edge AI chip manufacturing. Conversely, if Samsung's 2nm yields disappoint, as they have at some earlier nodes, TSMC's competitive moat widens further.