Amazon to invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic; AI firm commits to spend $100 billion on AWS in return
Amazon announced Monday it will invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic. As part of the deal, the AI firm also committed to spending more than $100 billion on Amazon’s cloud technologies over the next decade.
The deal marks one of the largest long-term collaborations in the rapidly intensifying AI race and deepens the two companies’ relationship as Anthropic looks to secure capacity to support its models. The announcement noted that Anthropic is providing up to 5 gigawatts of capacity to train and deploy Claude AI models.
Seattle-based Amazon will invest $5 billion in Anthropic now and will invest up to an additional $20 billion in the future depending on certain business milestones. This investment is in addition to the $8 billion investment Amazon previously invested in the company.
“Anthropic’s commitment to run large language models on AWS Trainium for the next decade reflects the progress we’ve made together on custom silicon as we continue to deliver the technology and infrastructure our customers need to build with generative AI,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.
Amazon doubles down on AI infrastructure and strategic bets
Even as Amazon continues to dominate the backbone of the AI boom through its cloud computing services, it has struggled to generate widespread interest around in-house AI models like Nova. The company expects around $200 billion in capital spending this year, with much of that going towards scaling its AI infrastructure. Reuters reported.
Amazon is also investing heavily in leading artificial intelligence startups. Its latest investment in Claude creator Anthropic comes after Amazon announced earlier this year that it would invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI, the company behind AI chatbot ChatGPT. Two artificial intelligence companies are racing to convince investors of their strengthening positions ahead of potential IPOs this year.
In a statement recorded on Monday, Anthropic said it expects to bring about 1 gigawatt of capacity by the end of the year through its Trainium2 and Trainium3 chips, according to the news agency.
Competitors are also investing in Antropik
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers and executives, Anthropic has quickly become one of the leading players in the generative AI space. The company is best known for its Claude family of models and has seen strong early interest among corporate customers who reportedly exceed $30 billion in annual revenue. CNBC reported.
Anthropic deepened its ties with Amazon by naming Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud provider in 2023 and then its primary education partner in 2024. However, the company did not limit itself to a single ecosystem and signed additional agreements with competitors such as Microsoft and Google.
In November, Microsoft agreed to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic, and the AI firm said it had committed to purchasing $30 billion of Azure computing capacity. Earlier this month, Anthropic expanded its partnerships with Google and Broadcom for “multi-gigawatt” capacity. CNBC.
Anthropic aims to get ahead in the artificial intelligence race with model versions focusing on coding and design. Meanwhile, Amazon is seeking customers for its custom silicon chips designed for AI training and inference. Amazon shares rose around 2.7% in extended trading following the announcement.
