Amazon confirmed that it will be doubling its investment in the San Francisco-based AI startup founded by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic. With its new investment of $4 billion, the amount goes up to $8 billion. Although considered one of the biggest investments a company has received, this still holds Amazon at a minority stake in the company famous for its AI models and Claude.
Alongside the investment, Amazon Web Services (AWS) will become Anthropic’s “primary cloud and training partner.” This partnership will see AWS providing critical infrastructure, with Anthropic utilizing AWS’s Trainium and Inferentia chips to train and deploy its advanced AI models. AWS customers will also get early access to a special feature: using their proprietary data, they will be able to fine-tune Anthropic’s Claude AI.
This deal is part of the ongoing AI race among tech giants and startups. With the generative AI market projected to cross over $1 trillion in revenue within a decade, companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are competing to develop and roll out the most powerful AI technologies. The investment marks Amazon’s latest after it had previously committed to investing $2.75 billion in March 2024. It marked the biggest outside investment by the company to date.
Anthropic has made significant strides in AI innovation, including the recent development of its Computer Use capability, which allows AI agents to perform tasks on a computer as humans do.
This includes navigating websites, interacting with software, and executing complex sequences of tasks. Amazon had early access to this new feature, which has been used by companies like Asana, Canva, and Notion.
In addition to the launch of Claude’s new capabilities, Anthropic has continued to release advanced AI models. This includes the rollout of Claude 3.5 Sonnet in June 2024, and the introduction of Claude Enterprise in September, which is designed to serve the needs of businesses seeking to integrate Anthropic’s AI into their operations.
The renewed partnership with Amazon underscores the growing importance of cloud infrastructure and AI collaboration in the competitive generative AI space, positioning both companies for long-term success in this rapidly evolving market.