Amazon has announced its largest external investment in its three-decade history. The e-commerce behemoth said it is injecting $2.75 billion into Anthropic, a San Francisco-based startup renowned for its advancements in generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, according to a CNBC report.
This latest injection of capital follows an initial $1.25 billion investment made in September, bringing
Amazon's total commitment to Anthropic to a whopping $4 billion.
Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI research executives and employees, has been making waves in the AI landscape with its products.
The company's flagship model, Claude, is touted as a formidable competitor to existing AI models, including
OpenAI's offerings.Notably, Anthropic recently unveiled Claude 3, its latest suite of AI models, supporting unprecedented speed and power.
According to the company, its cutting-edge models have outperformed industry benchmarks, surpassing even the likes of OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Gemini Ultra in various domains such as undergraduate-level knowledge and graduate-level reasoning, the CNBC report said.
Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of Data and AI at Amazon Web Services (AWS) highlighted the strategic significance of the partnership with Anthropic in enhancing customer experiences and driving innovation.
Amazon's investment in Anthropic mirrors a broader trend in the tech industry, with cloud providers intensifying their efforts to capitalise on the growing demand for AI solutions.
Microsoft, for instance, has made investments in OpenAI, while Google has also backed Anthropic through its Google Cloud platform.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated a market inquiry into the investments and partnerships between AI developers and major cloud service providers.
