Amazon is doubling its investment in Anthropic to $8 billion, further strengthening their collaboration on artificial intelligence, the companies announced on Friday.
The e-commerce and technology giant will remain a minority investor in Anthropic, having initially invested $4 billion in the AI developer late last year and becoming its primary cloud computing provider.
“The response from AWS customers developing generative AI applications powered by Anthropic in Amazon Bedrock has been remarkable,” said Matt Garman, head of Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“We will continue to push the boundaries of what customers can achieve with generative AI technologies.”
The additional $4 billion investment is part of an expanded partnership that includes collaboration on “Trainium” hardware to optimise machine learning, according to the companies.
“We’re excited to work with Amazon to train and power our most advanced AI models using AWS Trainium, helping to unlock the full potential of their technology,” said Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
This announcement follows the recent clearance by Britain’s competition regulator of Google-parent Alphabet’s investment in Anthropic after a detailed investigation.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded that the tech giant had not gained “material influence” over Anthropic as a result of the deal, which reportedly cost $2 billion.
The CMA, like other global regulators, remains vigilant about the influence of big tech companies and their partnerships with AI firms.
In September, the CMA also cleared Amazon’s initial $4 billion investment in Anthropic, stating that it did not believe the deal constituted “a relevant merger situation.”