Anthropic, an artificial intelligence firm developing a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has received approximately $400 million from Google, an Alphabet Inc. company, according to reports.
Anthropic will employ Google’s cloud computing capabilities, according to a collaboration that Google and Anthropic separately announced. Google and Anthropic declined to comment on the investment. The agreement is the most recent partnership between a tech juggernaut and an AI start-up as the market for generative AI, which can produce text and artwork in a matter of seconds, heats up.
The agreement provides Google a share in Anthropic, but it is not mandatory for the firm to use the money to purchase cloud services from Google, according to the sources.
Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said in a statement that artificial intelligence (AI) has developed from academic research to become one of the major forces driving technological transformation, generating new prospects for development and better services across all industries. “Google Cloud is providing open infrastructure for the next wave of AI companies, and our partnership with Anthropic is a perfect illustration of how we’re enabling individuals and organizations to harness the potential of trustworthy and ethical AI,” says Google Cloud.
Anthropic AI, a company founded in 2021 by former executives of OpenAI Inc., notably Daniela and Dario Amodei, published a restricted test of Claude in January to compete with OpenAI’s very well-liked ChatGPT chatbot.
The Microsoft Corporation’s high-profile $10 billion investment in OpenAI, which expanded on the $1 billion it had already invested in the AI firm in 2019 and another round in 2021, came after the Google-Anthropic agreement.
These partnerships allow more established businesses, like Microsoft and Google, access to some of the most well-known and cutting-edge AI systems. Startups like Anthropic, on the other hand, require capital and cloud computing capabilities from a digital behemoth like Google. In announcing the partnership, Google stated that its cloud business will give Anthropic computational capacity and cutting-edge AI processors to train and deploy its future AI products.
The agreement highlights Google’s dedication to AI, particularly in regards to potential applications that go outside the company’s main search business. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Thursday as the business released fourth-quarter profits, “I’m enthused about the AI-driven jumps we’re going to disclose in Search and beyond.” He said that Google planned to make chatbots available “in the coming weeks and months” and let users use them “as a companion to search.”
