Google Invests $300 Million in Anthropic to Fight Back Against Microsoft and OpenAI

There is an intensifying rivalry going on between Google and Microsoft as they each attempt to get a solid foothold in the AI field. Microsoft closely aligned itself with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, while Google appears to have chosen AI startup Anthropic, a company founded by former OpenAI employees.

Founded in 2021, Anthropic is an AI safety and research startup focused on AI language models. It has built a potential rival to ChatGPT, a general-purpose chatbot named Claude, though it has yet to release it to the public. However, that might soon change due to its new partnership with Google.

The Financial Times reported that Google invested $300 million in the startup, which occurred in late 2022, despite news only surfacing recently. The deal will give Google a 10% stake in the company and potentially see more cooperation in the future, though they already plan to collaborate on the development of AI computing systems.

While unrelated to the deal, Anthropic recently declared that Google Cloud is its preferred cloud provider.

The deal could mean big things for the lesser-known AI startup, giving it the resources it needs to break out and potentially compete with OpenAI and ChatGPT. Even before that, the startup’s valuation stands to rise significantly, with the New York Times estimating a value of roughly $5 billion.

Similarities Between Anthropic Deal and OpenAI Deal

While the numbers might not be the same, there are shadows of similarity between Google’s partnership with Anthropic and Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI. In both cases, the AI startups are providing technology and expertise while receiving resources to develop further.

Both of the AI companies also look to use their counterpart’s cloud platform to train AI models, though it is still unknown what plans Google has for Anthropic’s technology, including the chatbot. Will it mimic Microsoft and begin to integrate the technology into its products? Considering Google’s experience with AI, that might not be the case.

Anthropic’s Focus on AI Safety

According to a former OpenAI employee, OpenAI founders paid lip service to AI safety, brushing aside “legitimate A.I. safety concerns.” Anthropic, on the other hand, is focused on AI safety and research and is “working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.”

According to Anthropic’s website, “Large, general systems of today can have significant benefits, but can also be unpredictable, unreliable, and opaque.” Their goal is to “make progress” on those issues via research. Additionally, the startup states that while it is focused on research involving those goals, it foresees opportunities ”to create value commercially and for public benefit.”

Of course, those opportunities might come sooner with Google’s support. The startup did limited testing of Claude, its chatbot, in January, but it is already planning to move to the next phase with Google’s support.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made a statement saying, “We’re partnering with Google Cloud to support the next phase of Anthropic, where we’re going to deploy our AI systems to a larger set of people.”