Google reportedly invests more than $1 billion in Anthropic again

Recently, the Financial Times reported that Google will invest more than $1 billion in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. The investment was announced after multiple media reports in early January that Anthropic was close to completing a nearly $2 billion financing round. The round is expected to be led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, valuing Anthropic at nearly $60 billion.

It is reported that this new investment from Google has nothing to do with Lightspeed’s financing round, showing Google’s continued confidence in Anthropic. As a major competitor of OpenAI, Anthropic occupies an important position in the field of AI basic models. While Anthropic did not comment for this story, and Google did not respond to a request for comment outside business hours, the market's reaction to the investment is closely watched.

Google has already invested US$2 billion in Anthropic, while Amazon, another e-commerce giant, doubled its investment in Anthropic to US$8 billion at the end of last year. These investments indicate that the market is optimistic about the potential of AI technology. Anthropic has generated annualized revenue of approximately $875 million over the past year, primarily through direct sales of its models and through third-party cloud services such as Amazon Web Services.

The development of large-scale language models requires huge computing resources and top talents, which requires Anthropic to continuously raise funds in a highly competitive market. Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, the AI ​​industry has entered a fierce competition. OpenAI’s popularity and new product launches helped it close a $6.6 billion funding round in October, bringing its valuation to $157 billion.

As AI technology continues to advance, major technology companies are scrambling to make plans and occupy a place in this AI competition.