Google invested about $300 million in artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic, making it the latest tech giant to throw its money and computing power behind a new generation of companies trying to claim a place in the booming field of “generative AI”.
Google will take a 10% stake in the start-up, which will help Anthropic’s finances at a time when it is purchasing significant computing resources from Google’s cloud computing division. Google confirmed that it had made an investment and that it had a large cloud contract with Anthropic, but no further details were provided. Google’s move highlights the power that a small number of Big Tech companies have over other AI companies that require access to cloud computing platforms to handle the massive AI models developed by groups like Anthropic.