After Anthropic backed out of the deal, Amazon began considering a $7 billion acquisition of an AI startup

Online retailer Amazon, which has emerged in recent years as one of the leading providers of cloud services, is in talks to acquire the AI startup Decart for approximately $7 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources. Anthropic had previously declined to acquire the company, and the amount being discussed with Amazon significantly exceeds Decart’s most recent known valuation of $4 billion in May of this year.

According to sources cited by the WSJ, a deal could be reached in the near future, provided the negotiations do not fall through and no other bidder emerges. Before Amazon, Nvidia was initially interested in acquiring the startup, and in August, Anthropic became the leading bidder. Negotiations with Anthropic had valued Decart at $6 billion to $7 billion. Anthropic conducted due diligence but then walked away from the deal in September without explaining why, CTech notes.

Amazon is developing its own line of Trainium AI chips as an alternative to solutions from Nvidia, which controls up to 90% of this market. For companies seeking to reduce their dependence on Nvidia, the ability to work with different processors is particularly important, notes CTech. “The challenge isn’t just about getting chips, but about making the most efficient use of expensive computing resources,” the publication explains. Decart’s software, which helps customers run AI models more efficiently on various hardware, could enhance the appeal of Amazon’s cloud platform.

Technological collaboration has already begun: according to the WSJ, Amazon granted Decart early access to Trainium3 as early as last year. In May, it was reported that Amazon had become one of the startup’s clients. The acquisition of Decart will give Amazon direct control over technology that has already been tested in its cloud services, CTech notes.

In late July, Amazon reported that its custom chip business generates more than $25 billion in annual revenue. This includes Trainium, used for training and running AI models, and Graviton, used for cloud computing—these processors are also increasingly being used for AI agents.

Anthropic has agreed to use up to 5 GW of computing power on Trainium, while OpenAI will use 2 GW, starting in 2027. Meta plans to deploy tens of millions of Graviton cores to develop AI agents. Uber is already using these processors and is testing Trainium3 for training AI models, Amazon noted at the time.

The $7 billion acquisition of Decart will be one of the cloud giant’s largest in recent years, notes CTech. In 2022, the company bought MGM Studios for $6.5 billion, and this year it announced an $11 billion deal with the satellite company Globalstar. With this acquisition, Amazon hopes to expand its satellite business and compete with SpaceX’s Starlink.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor