OpenAI Rival Anthropic Defends Partnerships With Amazon, Google

(Bloomberg) -- Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic said its decision to partner with both Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc. ensures it can maintain more “independence” than if it were reliant on one large tech firm, as is the case with rival OpenAI.

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“That independence and that choice is one thing that I think differentiates Anthropic from some of these other deals,” Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview Thursday at the Bloomberg Technology Summit.

Google, Amazon and Microsoft Corp. have invested billions in leading AI startups, providing vital financing and cloud computing support to build their computationally intensive products. But regulators in the US and UK are scrutinizing these deals to gauge their impact on the competitive landscape for AI.

Microsoft, in particular, has committed to invest $13 billion in OpenAI. The tech giant has also integrated the AI startup’s technology into virtually every corner of its business and played a key role in negotiating for Sam Altman to return as CEO of OpenAI after he was ousted by the board.

Anthropic, by comparison, is not as closely tied to one large investor. Google and Amazon have agreed to pump $2 billion and $4 billion into the startup, respectively. The companies also provide Anthropic with chips and cloud infrastructure to support building its AI systems.

Anthropic’s financial needs may only grow in the coming years. Amodei said it currently costs about $100 million to train models, but he expects this will eventually reach $100 billion.

“I expect we’ll see similarly structured deals,” Daniela Amodei, Anthropic’s co-founder and president, said at the event.

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