Largest External Investment in 30 Years Since Establishment
Amazon and Anthropic Invest a Total of 5.4 Trillion Won
Amazon is making an additional investment of $2.75 billion (approximately 3.72 trillion KRW) in the AI startup Anthropic. This marks the largest external investment in Amazon's 30-year history. It is seen as an intensifying arms race among big tech companies to gain an edge in the AI competition, a key growth theme in the tech industry.
On the 27th (local time), Amazon announced it would invest an additional $2.75 billion in Anthropic. This expands Amazon's total investment in Anthropic to $4 billion (approximately 5.4 trillion KRW), following the $1.25 billion (about 1.69 trillion KRW) invested last September.
With this investment, Amazon will hold a partial stake in Anthropic but will not participate on the board of directors.
Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of Data and AI at Amazon Web Services (AWS), stated, "Generative AI is poised to be the most innovative technology of our time," adding, "We believe that our strategic collaboration with Anthropic will further enhance our customers' experience and make us look forward to the next steps."
Founded in 2021 by siblings Daniela and Dario Amodei, former OpenAI employees, Anthropic has raised $7.3 billion (approximately 9.86 trillion KRW) over the past year. Recently, it launched its latest AI service, Claude 3, with plans to directly compete against OpenAI's ChatGPT. Anthropic claims that Claude 3 surpasses the performance of OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Gemini Ultra.
Big tech companies such as Microsoft (MS), Google, Amazon, and Nvidia have rapidly increased their AI investments following the success of OpenAI, which sparked the generative AI boom with ChatGPT. According to market research firm PitchBook, investments in generative AI companies exceeded $29 billion (approximately 39.18 trillion KRW) last year.
Microsoft, once considered a "PC king" of a bygone era, is regarded as a prime example of success in the AI arms race. By boldly investing in AI startups, including a $13 billion (approximately 17.56 trillion KRW) investment in OpenAI, MS quickly transformed into a leading AI player and became the company with the highest market capitalization. Not stopping there, MS recently recruited Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and CEO of AI company Inflection AI, along with his staff, effectively absorbing Inflection AI.
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