According to Bloomberg, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has invested roughly $400 million in artificial intelligence firm Anthropic AI, which is testing a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
According to reports, Google and Anthropic declined to comment on the investment, but they did announce a collaboration in which Anthropic will employ Google’s cloud computing capabilities. The agreement is the latest collaboration between a tech behemoth and an AI startup as the area of generative AI technology that can produce text and art in seconds heats up.
“AI has evolved from academic research to become one of the biggest drivers of technological change, creating new opportunities for growth and improved services across all industries,” Thomas Kurian, Chief Executive Officer of Google Cloud, said in a statement.
Kurian added, “Google Cloud is providing open infrastructure for the next generation of AI startups, and our partnership with Anthropic is a great example of how we’re helping users and businesses tap into the power of reliable and responsible AI.”
Anthropic AI was started in 2021 by former employees of OpenAI Inc., including twins Daniela and Dario Amodei. In January, they released a limited test of a new chatbot called Claude to compete with OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The Google-Anthropic collaboration comes on the heels of Microsoft Corp.’s high-profile $10 billion investment in OpenAI, which expanded on the software giant’s $1 billion investment in the AI company in 2019, plus another round in 2021.
Such collaborations provide established corporations like Microsoft and Google with access to some of the most popular and powerful AI systems. Startups like Anthropic, on the other hand, require money and cloud computing resources that only a digital behemoth like Google can provide. In a statement, Google said that its cloud business will give Anthropic processing power and powerful AI chips. These will be used to train and deploy future AI products.
Claude, Anthropic’s language model helper, has not yet been made available to the public, but the company said it plans to broaden access to the chatbot “in the coming months.”
The agreement shows how serious Google is about AI, especially in ways that could go beyond the company’s main search business.
“I’m excited by the AI-driven leaps we’re about to unveil in Search and beyond,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Thursday as the company reported fourth-quarter earnings. He said Google intended to release chatbots “in the coming weeks and months” and allow consumers to use such products “as a companion to search.”
The Financial Times previously revealed Google’s stake in Anthropic.
