In an effort to remain competitive with Microsoft and Google in the artificial intelligence space and capitalize on generative AI, Amazon will invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic and take a minority ownership position in the AI firm.

Anthropic, which recently released a new AI chatbot called Claude 2, is an OpenAI competitor founded by former research executives from the ChatGPT creator. It is backed by Google and Salesforce Ventures, among others.

Amazon and Anthropic shared that they are forming a strategic collaboration in the generative AI space, with the startup unsurprisingly tapping Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider. AWS customers will receive early access to special features for customizing models — such as the ability to build via Amazon Bedrock.

“The agreement is part of a broader collaboration to develop the most reliable and high-performing foundation models in the industry,” the companies said in an official announcement.

AWS will design custom-made semiconductors to train the foundational models — large AI models developed using massive amounts of data — of Anthropic’s AI applications. The semiconductors may compete with Nvidia’s flagship AI-focused graphics processing units.

Amazon’s investment in the Anthropic follows Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI in January.

Adam James

Adam is the Editor-in-Chief of ReadWrite.