Amazon announced it will invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence startup that developed Claude, a chatbot rival to OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The deal underscores Amazon’s push to be a leader in the red-hot AI space as competitors like Microsoft and Google snap up their own AI companies. Anthropic was founded just two years ago by former execs from OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
Under the agreement, Amazon will first invest $1.25 billion in Anthropic and take a minority stake in the business. That initial investment can later be increased to as much as $4 billion if certain milestones are met.
In return, Anthropic will make Amazon Web Services (AWS) its primary cloud provider and use AWS-designed AI chips to power Claude and other AI applications. This further boosts AWS as a go-to cloud platform for AI workloads.
“We believe we can help improve many customer experiences through our deeper collaboration with Anthropic,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
Anthropic will also give AWS customers early access to custom features for fine-tuning Claude and other models. This could give Amazon’s cloud an edge over rivals.
The news comes right after Anthropic unveiled Claude 2, an updated version of its ChatGPT rival. Claude 2 promises more natural conversations and the ability to admit mistakes.
Amazon’s significant investment mirrors Microsoft’s recent multibillion-dollar deals with OpenAI. With AI poised to transform everything from search to customer service, tech giants are racing to stake their claims in this emerging space.
Source: The Guardian
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Last Updated on September 26, 2023 by Safiya K
