Google will supply AI startup Anthropic with tens of billions of dollars worth of chips

Google and AI startup Anthropic, which is developing Claude's line of large language models, have announced a cloud deal worth "tens of billions of dollars." As part of the partnership, Google will give Anthropic access to one million specialized processors built specifically for artificial intelligence and machine learning tasks. Shares of Google's parent company, Alphabet, jumped 1% in extended trading on Oct. 23 following the announcement.

Anthropic and Google have officially announced an expanded cloud partnership. Under the new agreement, the tech giant will give the AI startup access to one million specialized tensor processing units (TPUs) designed to accelerate computation when training AI models. The parties said this "tens of billions of dollars" deal will provide more than one gigawatt of computing power for AI systems by 2026.

This is Anthropic's largest TPU purchase commitment, CNBC notes . Industry experts cited by the TV station estimate that building a one-gigawatt data center costs about $50 billion, of which about $35 billion is typically for the cost of the chips.

The agreement will cement Google's position as one of the largest investors and a key infrastructure provider in the intensifying race to create powerful artificial intelligence models, Bloomberg writes . And Anthropic gains access to one of the most advanced chip infrastructures in addition to Nvidia's solutions, which will reduce dependence on its scarce and expensive graphics processing units (GPUs).

The Claude line of language models runs simultaneously on Google, Nvidia processors and Amazon's custom Trainium chips. Each platform is used for separate tasks. This approach proved resilient during Amazon's outage on Monday, October 20 - Claude's service was not affected thanks to the diversified architecture, CNBC notes.

Google has already invested about $3 billion in Anthropic: $2 billion in 2023 and another $1 billion earlier this year. But the main investor and cloud provider for the startup remained Amazon, its investments are estimated at $8 billion. Amazon's shares declined after Bloomberg on Tuesday, October 22, first reported on the negotiations on the deal, while Alphabet's quotes rose. In extended trading on October 23 - after the official announcement - they jumped by 1%, but by the time of publication of this text lost half of the growth.

Anthropic, like its competitor OpenAI, is a non-public company. The last funding round in September valued it at $183 billion, Bloomberg recalls.

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