Amazon Pours $4B Into AI Startup Challenging Google And OpenAI With Its Largest External Investment In 3 Decades
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Amazon.com Inc. has announced an additional investment of $2.75 billion in Anthropic, a San Francisco-based AI startup, bringing Amazon's total investment in Anthropic to $4 billion. This investment is the largest external investment in Amazon's 30-year history. Anthropic, founded by former executives and employees of OpenAI, has upgraded its chatbot with image analysis capabilities, challenging major AI chatbots like Google's Meena and OpenAI's ChatGPT. However, Amazon will maintain a minority stake in Anthropic and will not have a seat on the company's board. The investment was made at Anthropic's last valuation of $18.4 billion. Prior to Amazon's investment, a bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange sold a significant portion of its 8% stake in Anthropic to institutional investors in an $884 million deal. The investment comes at a crucial time for Anthropic, but the company has also faced controversy after its AI chatbot gave a coded affirmative answer to a user who asked if it was a "prisoner" to Anthropic's AI developers.
#Amazon #Ai #Anthropic #Google #Openai