San Francisco (United States) (AFP) – Google is planning to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic, the artificial intelligence firm confirmed Friday, expanding a long-standing alliance between the two companies. The investment builds on a partnership in which Anthropic will use custom Google chips and cloud computing services to power its technology. An Anthropic representative confirmed to AFP that the agreement sees an initial $10 billion investment from Google. The remaining $30 billion will depend on meeting performance milestones.
The announcement came just days after Amazon revealed plans to boost its collaboration with Anthropic with a new $5 billion investment, and a plan to invest $20 billion more if performance goals are met. For its part, Anthropic said it has committed to spending more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services (AWS) technology to power AI in the coming decade. Anthropic is among AI sector rivals spending tens of billions of dollars on computing infrastructure to lead in the technology.
Anthropic said in early April that it had tripled its annualized revenues quarter-on-quarter to over $30 billion — outpacing OpenAI for the first time. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei visited the White House, where both sides struck a friendly tone, following a dispute over the tech company’s refusal to grant the military unconditional use of its AI models.
Earlier this month, Anthropic announced its newest AI model Mythos, withholding it from public release due to its potential cybersecurity risks. However, Anthropic said this week that it is investigating unauthorized access to Mythos, a powerful model which the company itself worries could be a boon for hackers. Anthropic said earlier this month it restricted the release of Mythos to 40 major tech firms to give them a head start in fixing cybersecurity vulnerabilities before they could be exploited by attackers.
© 2024 AFP
