AIster · The ChatGPT shock · Funding

Amazon commits up to $4 billion to Anthropic

Big cloud companies began buying stakes in the labs that rent their chips

Key facts

Date

25 Sep 2023

Era

The ChatGPT shock

Interest

Funding

Threads

Compute, Labs & people

Amazon

Up to $4 billion, $1.25 billion initially, for a minority stake

Cloud

AWS as primary cloud provider; Trainium and Inferentia chips

Google

Reported (WSJ, 27 Oct 2023): up to $2 billion, $500 million upfront and $1.5 billion later

Amazon agreed to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, starting with $1.25 billion for a minority stake. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon's cloud business, became Anthropic's primary cloud provider, with Anthropic using its Trainium and Inferentia AI chips. A month later The Wall Street Journal reported that Google had agreed to invest up to $2 billion.

Sources

1. Anthropic, Expanding access to safer AI with Amazon, 2023-09-25
2. TechCrunch, Amazon to invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, 2023-09-25
3. TechCrunch, AI’s proxy war heats up as Google reportedly backs Anthropic with $2B, 2023-10-27