Google is making a new investment of more than $1 billion in startup Anthropic, one of OpenAI's leading competitors. Alphabet, Google's parent company, previously invested about $2 billion in the startup and is now increasing its stake, sources familiar with the situation told the Financial Times.

  • Anthropic, known for its Claude artificial intelligence models, is a leader in developing generative AI technologies that can generate text, images and program code based on user requests. Google, which once invented the technology on which Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4 are based, is trying to catch up in commercializing this powerful technology, explains the Financial Times.
  • The investment in Anthropic is part of the Silicon Valley company's efforts to diversify its AI business and compete with such powerful players as Microsoft, Meta and Amazon.
  • Anthropic is also close to a separate $2 billion deal from Silicon Valley venture capitalists led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The investment could triple the company's valuation to about $60 billion.

The startup faces stiff competition from the likes of OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI, both of which raised more than $10 billion last year, as well as Meta and Microsoft. Google's new tranche of funding for Anthropic comes on top of a total of $8 billion from Amazon, which is also increasing its stake in one of OpenAI's main competitors. Amazon is also working to integrate Claude's models into the next generation of its voice assistant, Alexa.

Anthropic, which was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees, aims to differentiate itself from its competitors by focusing on AI safety.