Oct 30, 2023 - Economy

Google is investing $2 billion into Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI

Dan Primack

Illustration of a brain made out of glowing lines and nodules composed of quarters. — Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Google has agreed to invest up to $2 billion into Anthropic, a San Francisco-based generative AI startup that recently secured $4 billion from Amazon.

Why it matters: Not only does this escalate Big Tech's proxy fight over the industry's next big platform shift, but also comes on the same day that the Biden administration unveiled an "aggressive" executive order on artificial intelligence.

Details: Google's investment includes $500 million upfront. In April it invested hundreds of millions into Anthropic for what was then a 10% stake. These deals often include cloud services in lieu of actual cash.

Other investors include Salesforce Ventures, Zoom Ventures, Spark Capital, and embattled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

More, per CNBC: "Anthropic is the developer of Claude 2, a rival chatbot to OpenAI's ChatGPT ... Claude 2 has the ability to summarize up to about 75,000 words, which could be the length of a book. Users can input large data sets and ask for summaries in the form of a memo, letter or story. ChatGPT, by contrast, can handle about 3,000 words."

Add Axios on Google

Google is investing $2 billion into Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI

What to read next