Amazon invests additional $4 bln in AI startup Anthropic

Amazon has poured another $4 billion into Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup behind the chatbot Claude. This new funding doubles Amazon's total investment in the startup to $8 billion. 

According to a recent report by Reuters, despite the sizable backing, Anthropic remains independent, with the latest funding to be released in phases, starting with $1.3 billion.

Anthropic is using Amazon's AI chips, Trainium and Inferentia, to train its advanced AI models. The startup is also working closely with Amazon's Annapurna Labs to develop new processors. This is part of Amazon's broader effort to compete with companies like Microsoft and Google in the fast-moving race to dominate AI technology, suggests Reuters.

In addition to funding, Amazon has become Anthropic's primary cloud provider through Amazon Web Services (AWS), which helps distribute the startup's AI models to customers. This collaboration is expected to bring Anthropic significant revenue while promoting Amazon's AI capabilities, as per the Reuters report.

Anthropic is also in talks with other investors to raise more money, aiming to capitalise on the AI boom. The race for AI dominance has seen massive investments, including OpenAI's $6.6 billion funding round last month, which valued the company at $157 billion.

Anthropic was co-founded by siblings and former OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei. The startup has previously secured funding from Alphabet, Google's parent company, which committed $2 billion in total investments. Anthropic also uses Google Cloud for some of its 
operations.