Google invests almost $400 million in ChatGPT rival Anthropic

Alphabet Inc.’s Google has invested almost $400 million in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, which is testing a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to a person familiar with the deal.

Google and Anthropic declined to comment on the investment, but separately announced a partnership in which Anthropic will use Google’s cloud computing services. 

The deal marks the latest alliance between a tech giant and an AI startup as the field of generative AI technology that can generate text and art in seconds  heats up.

The deal gives Google a stake in Anthropic, but doesn’t require the startup to spend the funds buying cloud services from Google, said the person who asked not to be identified because the terms were confidential.

Founded in 2021 by former leaders of OpenAI Inc., including siblings Daniela and Dario Amodei, Anthropic AI in January released a limited test of a new chatbot named Claude to rival to OpenAI’s wildly popular ChatGPT.

The Google-Anthropic partnership follows a high-profile $10 billion investment by Microsoft Corp. in OpenAI, which built on the $1 billion the software giant had poured into the AI startup in 2019, plus another round in 2021.

Anthropic’s language model assistant, Claude, hasn’t yet been released to the public, but the startup said it planned to expand access to the chatbot “in the coming months.”

The deal underscores Google’s commitment to AI, particularly in ways that may be expanded beyond the company’s core search business.