Google invests up to $40 billion in Anthropic in cash and compute
▼ Summary
– Google plans to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic, with $10 billion now at a $350 billion valuation and $30 billion contingent on performance targets.
– Anthropic released its most powerful model, Mythos, with significant cybersecurity applications, but restricted access due to potential misuse risks.
– Anthropic secured an additional $5 billion from Amazon and a deal with CoreWeave for data center capacity amid user complaints about Claude limits.
– Google Cloud will provide Anthropic with 5 gigawatts of compute capacity over five years, expanding on an existing partnership for TPU-based infrastructure.
– Anthropic’s valuation reached $350 billion in February, with investors now valuing it at $800 billion or more, and the company is considering an IPO as soon as October.
Google is betting big on Anthropic, committing up to $40 billion in cash and computing resources, according to a report from Bloomberg. The Alphabet subsidiary will initially inject $10 billion at a $350 billion valuation for the AI firm, with an additional $30 billion contingent on Anthropic hitting specific performance milestones, the company confirmed.
This massive financial pledge follows the recent release of Anthropic’s latest model, Mythos, which has been made available to a select group of partners. Anthropic describes Mythos as its most powerful model to date, with notable applications in cybersecurity. However, due to concerns about potential misuse, the company has restricted broader access while it works with chosen organizations to evaluate and mitigate those risks. The model has already been obtained without authorization, and scaling it is likely to be expensive.
The battle for AI dominance is increasingly defined by access to the computing power required to train and deploy these systems. OpenAI has been aggressive in securing that capacity through a series of multi-hundred-billion-dollar deals across cloud providers, chip suppliers, and energy sources, including an expanded agreement with chipmaker Cerebras this month.
Anthropic has been scrambling to keep pace. The company has faced widespread complaints about Claude usage limits in recent weeks and has responded with a flurry of infrastructure deals. Earlier this month, it secured data center capacity from cloud provider CoreWeave. It also locked in an additional $5 billion investment from Amazon, part of a broader agreement where Anthropic is expected to spend up to $100 billion for around 5 gigawatts of compute capacity over time.
While Google is a direct competitor in the AI model space, it also serves as a critical infrastructure supplier to Anthropic. The company relies heavily on Google Cloud for chips and infrastructure, including access to Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs). These specialized chips are designed for AI workloads and are considered among the best alternatives to Nvidia’s highly sought-after processors.
Anthropic’s relationship with Google extends beyond this week’s news. Earlier this month, the company announced a partnership with Google and chipmaker Broadcom, which designs custom AI chips for Google, to access multiple gigawatts of TPU-based computing starting in 2027. A subsequent Broadcom securities filing pegged that capacity at 3.5 gigawatts. The new Google investment expands that arrangement, with Google Cloud now providing an additional 5 gigawatts of capacity over the next five years, with room to scale further.
Anthropic’s valuation stood at $350 billion as recently as February, but investors have since shown interest in backing the company at $800 billion or more, Bloomberg reports. The company is also reportedly considering an IPO as soon as October.
(Source: TechCrunch)
