Nvidia, Microsoft Invest $15 Billion in AI Startup Anthropic
Washington: Nvidia and Microsoft announced Tuesday they are investing a combined $15 billion in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, creator of the Claude chatbot, at a time of frenzied spending on technology and rising bubble fears.
Artificial intelligence chip giant Nvidia has committed up to $10 billion, while Microsoft, which owns 27 percent of Anthropic rival OpenAI, has committed up to $5 billion to the maker of Claude AI models.
Microsoft also continues to invest heavily in its own Copilot AI, which runs on the company’s Azure platform.
The deal was part of a comprehensive deal in which Anthropic committed to buying $30 billion of Microsoft’s cloud computing capacity and adopting the latest versions of Nvidia’s chip technology.
“We will increasingly become each other’s customers,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an online video announcing the deal.
“We will use anthropomorphic models. They will use our infrastructure, and we will go to market together to help our customers understand the value of AI.”
The investments mark a significant realignment in the productive AI sector, where competition has intensified between ChatGPT maker OpenAI and rivals such as Anthropic and Google, which also released its latest Gemini model on Tuesday.
California-based Anthropic was launched in 2021 by former OpenAI staff and positions itself as a company that prioritizes security in AI development. Its flagship product is the Claude family of chatbots and models.
Tech industry rivals including Amazon, Meta and Elon Musk’s xAI have been pouring tens of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence since the blockbuster launch of the first version of ChatGPT in late 2022.
Meanwhile, Nvidia has become a coveted source of high-performance GPUs designed specifically for generative AI.
Shares of Nvidia, the world’s largest company by market value, fell slightly amid a broad sell-off in the tech sector as Wall Street analysts increased talk of an AI bubble.
Microsoft’s shares lost approximately 2.5 percent.
Sources told CNBC that the new investment values Anthropic at $350 billion, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world. OpenAI was last valued at $500 billion.
investment frenzy
The big investment in Anthropic comes a month after Nvidia announced it would pour as much as $100 billion into OpenAI, creating infrastructure for future generations of the technology.
“Computer infrastructure will be the foundation of the economy of the future,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at the time.
In the process of making a dazzling deal, OpenAI recently signed a $38 billion deal with Amazon’s AWS cloud computing arm, continuing a major partnership spree that includes Oracle, Broadcom and AMD.
Nvidia’s GPUs, originally designed for gaming systems, have become essential building blocks for AI applications as tech giants scramble to secure them for data centers and AI projects.
Silicon Valley-based Nvidia recently announced that it will invest $5 billion in its chip rival Intel.
The investment, backed by the White House, represents a significant commitment to Intel’s turnaround efforts.
