OpenAI's Biggest Competitor Anthropic... Investment Fever Heats Up
Anthropic, considered a rival to ChatGPT developer OpenAI, is seeking investment with a valuation of $60 billion (approximately 87 trillion KRW).
On the 7th (local time), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Anthropic is in talks with investors to raise $2 billion, and if successfully completed, the company's valuation will reach $60 billion. This means Anthropic's valuation has more than tripled compared to a year ago ($18 billion). WSJ explained, “Anthropic is set to become one of the top five startups in the U.S., alongside SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe, and Databricks.”
Anthropic is the biggest competitor to OpenAI, which is currently pushing for conversion to a for-profit corporation. The company was founded by siblings Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, who were founding members of OpenAI and emphasize AI safety and ethics. Anthropic's AI model, ‘Claude,’ unveiled a feature last October that allows AI to operate computers on behalf of users.
Major shareholders of Anthropic include Amazon and Google. They assist Anthropic in developing AI technology at their own data centers. Amazon invested $4 billion in Anthropic last November, and since 2023, the total investment has reached $8 billion.
OpenAI, which is at the center of commercialization controversies, raised $6.6 billion last October, increasing its valuation to $157 billion (approximately 228 trillion KRW). However, the company has faced widespread concerns within and outside the industry that AI technology without safeguards could be easily developed, as it attempts to restructure its governance into a for-profit corporation to cover the high costs of AI development.
OpenAI expects to generate $3.7 billion in revenue last year due to strong sales from new product launches such as GPT-4o, mini, o1 models, and ChatGPT Pro. In contrast, Anthropic's estimated annual revenue for last year is projected to be only $875 million.
xAI, led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, raised $6 billion in funding last month, and its valuation is analyzed to have surpassed $40 billion. Big tech companies such as Meta and Google are also investing billions of dollars to build generative AI.
WSJ conveyed the atmosphere, stating, “Investors are betting on the potential of generative AI to change how people work and live, and most are not overly concerned by the fact that most AI startups are incurring losses due to high technology costs and fierce competition.”
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