Amazon has completed its $4 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic, acquiring a minority stake in the firm and establishing AWS as its preferred cloud service provider.
Amazon has announced the completion of its $4-billion investment pledge to AI startup Anthropic, securing a minority stake in the company. In a recent update, Amazon revealed an additional investment of $2.75 billion, following an initial $1.25 billion investment disclosed last September.
Established in 2021 by ex-OpenAI team members, Anthropic has developed Claude, an AI chatbot that competes with ChatGPT, showcasing its innovative contributions to the AI field.
In March, Anthropic unveiled Claude 3, its most advanced version yet, with the added capability to analyze images. Amazon disclosed that Anthropic has chosen Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud provider for essential tasks, encompassing safety research and the crafting of upcoming foundational models. Furthermore, Anthropic plans to utilize AWS’s Trainium and Inferentia chips for the development, training, and deployment of its future AI models.
Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS’s vice president of data and AI, expressed that the partnership with Anthropic is expected to enhance their customers’ experience significantly. He described generative AI as “the most transformational technology of our time,” highlighting the potential impact of this collaboration.
In addition to its significant investments in AI, Amazon recently introduced Amazon Q, an AI-powered assistant designed for business use, capable of chatting, problem-solving, content creation, and more.
Amazon is not alone in its interest in Anthropic; Google revealed a $500-million investment in the company last October, with plans to raise the investment to $2 billion.
Similar to other leading AI chatbot creators, Anthropic is navigating legal challenges related to copyright and data infringement.
In January, Anthropic contested a lawsuit brought by Universal Music Group (UMG), which they described as baseless. The lawsuit accused the AI firm of illegal utilization and unauthorized replication and distribution of a substantial amount of UMG’s copyrighted material during the training of its AI models.
Concurrently, Anthropic revised its commercial terms of service, asserting that client data was not employed in training its AI and committing to shield customers from copyright infringement allegations linked to the legitimate use of its services or products.
