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Amazon Invests Up to $4 Billion in Anthropic
Amazon Invests Up to $4 Billion in Anthropic
Amazon plans to invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic.
The initial investment is $1.25 billion, with the option to increase to a total of $4 billion in the future.
Anthropic is planning to develop its next-generation AI model, "Claude-Next."
As part of the collaboration with Amazon, Anthropic will use Amazon's cloud service AWS as its primary provider.
Anthropic's CEO Has an Optimistic View of the Future
Anthropic's CEO has an optimistic view of the future of the company's technology.
Amazon has agreed to invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, both companies say. This is part of Amazon's efforts to strengthen its competition against Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Nvidia in the rapidly growing sector that many technologists consider the next great frontier.
The e-commerce group says it will initially invest $1.25 billion in Anthropic for a minority stake. Anthropic operates an AI-powered text-analyzing chatbot similar to Google's Bard and Microsoft-backed OpenAI. As part of the deal, Amazon says it has the option to increase its investment in Anthropic to a total of $4 billion.
TechCrunch reported exclusively earlier this year that Anthropic, which also counts Google as an investor, planned to raise up to $5 billion over the next two years. Anthropic launched earlier this month its first consumer premium subscription plan for its chatbot Claude 2. And according to investor materials obtained by TechCrunch in 2023, it plans to build a "frontier model" — codename "Claude-Next" — that will be 10x more powerful than today's most powerful AI.
However, the startup warns that this development will require $1 billion in spending over the next 18 months. (Microsoft has invested up to $11 billion in OpenAI over the past several years.)
At Amazon, Anthropic Has Found
At Amazon, Anthropic has found a strategic anchor investor that will help build future AI models and find and sell products to numerous cloud customers.
As part of the investment agreement, Anthropic will use Amazon's cloud giant AWS as its primary cloud provider for mission-critical workloads including safety research and future foundation model development, the e-commerce group says. Anthropic will further use AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train, and deploy future foundation models. (Anthropic has been an AWS customer since 2021.)
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement: "Through our deep collaboration, we'll be able to work with Anthropic to improve many customer experiences in the short and long term."
"Customers are very excited about Amazon Bedrock, AWS's new managed service. This enables companies to build generative AI applications using a variety of foundation models. I also believe we can help generate more value from these two capabilities through our collaboration with AWS Trainium, AWS's AI training chips, and Anthropic."
Anthropic, which also counts Spark Capital, Salesforce, Sound Ventures, Menlo Ventures, and Zoom as backers, has raised a total of $2.7 billion to date. The startup received a valuation of approximately $5 billion in a $450 million funding round in May this year. The new investment did not explicitly state how Amazon valued Anthropic.
The Deal with Anthropic Allows Amazon
The deal with Anthropic allows Amazon, which is increasingly asserting itself around AI, to build a larger strategic stake in the rapidly growing industry.
Last week, Dario Amodei, Anthropic's CEO and co-founder, told the TechCrunch Disrupt audience that he sees no major barriers to his company's key technology on the horizon.
"Over the past decade, the scale we use to train neural networks has grown remarkably, and we've continued to scale them up, and they're working better and better," he said last week. "That's the foundation for what I expect to see over the next two, three, four years... What we're seeing today will be overshadowed by comparison."
Anthropic made a "long-term" commitment to provide future generations of its foundation models to AWS customers worldwide through Amazon Bedrock—AWS's fully managed service providing secure access to industry-leading foundation models. Additionally, Anthropic will provide AWS customers with early access to unique features for model customization and fine-tuning capabilities.
"Training state-of-the-art models requires a lot of resources including compute and research programs. Amazon's investment and the provision of AWS Trainium and Inferentia technology ensures we are well-equipped to continue advancing the frontier of AI safety and research," Anthropic said in a statement. "We look forward to working closely with Amazon to responsibly scale Claude's adoption and bring safe AI cloud technology to organizations worldwide."
Reference: https://techcrunch.com/202
Image reference: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/anthropic-header.jpg?w=1390&crop=1
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This AI news is produced by the online assistant service "TIMEWELL."
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