Amazon revealed plans on Monday to put up to $4 billion into AI company Anthropic, entering a competitive AI landscape with big names like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, which can craft poems, essays, and more from brief prompts, has seen huge interest and funding in the past year.
Amazon hopes to enhance its Alexa voice tool with advanced AI to make conversations feel more natural for users.
Anthropic, based in San Francisco, is known for its leading AI work and its chatbot named Claude, which competes with ChatGPT.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy mentioned the company’s admiration for Anthropic and its AI models, stating that partnering could greatly improve customer interactions both now and in the future.
Big companies and investors in Silicon Valley are putting a lot of money into AI, trying to find the next big AI breakthrough.
With ChatGPT’s success, many have shifted focus to chatbots, sparking similar products, like Google’s Bard.
Big Chinese companies like Tencent and Baidu have released their own chatbots to compete with ChatGPT.
However, the latest deal between Amazon and Anthropic is not just about chatbots. It’s also about the development of computer chips specifically for AI. Anthropic has agreed to use Amazon’s chips for its upcoming models, and both will team up to create new chips.
Nick Patience from S&P Global Market explained that many are trying to move away from chips by NVIDIA, the current market leader. He believes that deals like the one with Amazon could shift this trend over the next five years.
Additionally, Anthropic will use Amazon Web Services (AWS) for important tasks. AWS helps store and manage large amounts of data.
Amazon will also take a small stake in Anthropic, a company that’s raised over $1 billion since its 2021 start.
According to the announcement, Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude, will assist AWS users in building new AI-driven tools to change how their businesses operate.
This move heightens the rivalry between Amazon and Google. Previously, Google had provided cloud services to Anthropic and invested $300 million for a 10% share.
Big AI projects need lots of computer power, so AI companies often depend on services from AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Big tech names, in their push for AI dominance, have been partnering with smaller AI companies, as seen with Microsoft’s huge investment in OpenAI.
