Google is investing up to $40 billion more in Anthropic

After Amazon, Google is also strengthening its alliance with OpenAI rival Anthropic with another billion-dollar investment. In a first step, the Internet giant is investing ten billion dollars (around 8.5 billion euros), as Anthropic announced.

Another $30 billion could follow if the developer company behind the AI ​​chatbot Claude achieves agreed goals. Google has been one of Anthropic’s backers for years and supplies the company with special chips for artificial intelligence.

Also billions from Amazon

Just at the beginning of the week, Amazon invested $5 billion in Anthropic – with the prospect of $20 billion more in further steps. This financial injection is also an example of so-called circular deals in the AI ​​industry, in which investments at least partially flow back to the financier in return for chips or computing power.

Anthropic – and also the ChatGPT developer OpenAI – urgently need more computer capacity for their artificial intelligence software. Both companies are on their way to going public at the same time.

Anthropic between Pentagon and myth

Anthropic has been in the headlines again and again in recent months. The company risked conflict with the US government by insisting, despite massive pressure, that its AI models could not be used in autonomous weapons systems and for mass surveillance in the US. The Pentagon then declared Anthropic a supply chain risk, which could severely impact the use of the company’s software in government agencies. The company is suing. But Anthropic recently demonstrated how important the company’s technology is to the US government. A new Anthropic model called Claude Mythos Preview finds vulnerabilities in various software that have remained undetected for decades. In the wrong hands, it would be a dangerous cyber weapon – and at the same time could give the US government an advantage in hardening its own programs and exploiting potential vulnerabilities for espionage abroad. Anthropic has no plans to make Mythos Preview public.

(v.a.z.a.)