Competition for OpenAI

Amazon pumps billions into AI start-up Anthropic

Amazon is investing a further 2.75 billion dollars (2.53 billion euros) in an AI start-up. The total investment by the world's largest online retailer in the company Anthropic thus rises to 4 billion dollars, as Amazon announced on Wednesday. Anthropic develops software with artificial intelligence such as the chatbot Claude.

Amazon initially acquired a stake in the company in September. At that time, it was also agreed that Amazon's subsidiary AWS would become the central provider of cloud infrastructure for Anthropic.

Lots of computing power required
The language models of chatbots with artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT require a lot of computing power, which is expensive. This is why partnerships with cloud heavyweights such as Microsoft or Amazon are particularly valuable for young AI companies.

The tech giants can in turn benefit from the start-ups' innovations. Microsoft, for example, acquired a stake in chatGPT developer OpenAI and is integrating AI software based on its technology into its products, from Windows to Office.

Amazon is a pioneer in voice assistants with its Alexa software. The company has since developed its own AI language models to make conversations with Alexa more fluid and efficient. Anthropics Claude is available to customers of an Amazon cloud service.