Google to invest up to $40 billion in AI rival Anthropic


FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration taken March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

April 24 (Reuters) - Google-parent Alphabet will ⁠invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic, as the tech giant deepens ⁠its partnership with the artificial intelligence startup that is also its ‌rival in the global AI race.

Anthropic said on Friday that Google has committed $10 billion now in cash at a valuation of $350 billion to help support a major expansion of its computing ​capacity, and will invest $30 billion more if the ⁠Claude maker meets performance targets.

The investment ⁠comes just days after e-commerce giant Amazon said it will invest up to $25 ⁠billion ‌in the startup, which has managed to stand out in the crowded AI industry by focusing its model training on coding.

Anthropic's Claude ⁠Code tool has gained strong traction among developers.

The company's ​annual run-rate revenue surpassed $30 ‌billion this month, up from about $9 billion at the end of ⁠2025.

The startup raised $30 ​billion in a funding round in February that valued it at $380 billion post-money amid massive investor interest, and has drawn offers from venture capital firms valuing it at ⁠as much as $800 billion, according to media reports.

HUNT ​FOR COMPUTING POWER

Strong demand for its Claude family of AI models has prompted Anthropic to sign several major deals recently to acquire more computing capacity.

Earlier this month, ⁠it struck multi-year deals with chipmaker Broadcom and cloud infrastructure firm CoreWeave, and is also set to secure nearly 1 gigawatt of capacity via Amazon's chips by year-end.

Last year, Anthropic had said it would invest $50 billion to build data ​centers in the U.S. to secure infrastructure to ⁠deploy and train its models.

Earlier this year, a series of plugin releases for Anthropic's ​Cowork agent sparked a brutal selloff in ‌global software stocks as investors weighed the disruptive ​potential of sophisticated AI tools.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai, Tasim Zahid and Sahal Muhammed)

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