Google to invest up to $40B in Anthropic in cash and compute

Google plans to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic and support the AI firm’s growing computing needs, Bloomberg reports. The Alphabet subsidiary is committing to invest $10 billion now, at a $350 billion valuation for Anthropic, with another $30 billion to follow if Anthropic hits certain performance targets, according to Anthropic. 

The promise of investment comes after Anthropic released its latest model, Mythos, to a limited group of partners this month. Anthropic says that Mythos is the company’s most powerful model to date and has significant cybersecurity applications. Due to potential misuse, Anthropic has restricted broader access while it works with select organizations to evaluate and address those risks — though the model has already fallen into unsanctioned hands. It’s also likely expensive to run at scale. 

The AI race is increasingly defined by access to the compute needed to train and deploy these systems. OpenAI has moved aggressively to secure that capacity through a web of multi-hundred-billion-dollar deals across cloud providers, chip suppliers, and energy, including an expanded deal with chipmaker Cerebras this month. 

Anthropic has been in a scramble of its own. The company has faced widespread complaints about Claude use limits in recent weeks and responded with a bevy of infrastructure deals. Earlier this month, Anthropic struck a deal with cloud computing provider CoreWeave for data center capacity. It also this week secured an additional $5 billion investment from Amazon, part of a broad agreement under which Anthropic is expected to spend up to $100 billion for around 5 gigawatts of compute capacity over time. 

While Google is a direct competitor in AI models, it’s also a key infrastructure supplier to Anthropic. Anthropic relies heavily on Google Cloud for chips and infrastructure, including access to Google’s tensor processing units (or TPUs), which are specialized chips designed for AI workloads and considered among the best alternatives to Nvidia’s in-demand processors.

Anthropic’s relationship with Google predates this week’s news. Earlier this month, Anthropic announced a partnership with Google and chipmaker Broadcom, which designs custom AI chips for Google, to access multiple gigawatts of TPU-based computing capacity beginning in 2027; a subsequent Broadcom securities filing put that figure at 3.5 gigawatts.

The new Google investment expands that arrangement, with Google Cloud now providing a fresh 5 gigawatts of capacity over the next five years, with room to scale further.

Anthropic’s valuation stood at $350 billion as recently as February; investors have since been eager to back the company at $800 billion or more, according to Bloomberg. The company is also reportedly considering an IPO as soon as October.