By
Mayowa Adebajo
April 29th, 2024
Tech giant Google recently invested a sizable sum into AI firm Anthropic to further facilitate AI deployment and use cases.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), via its Cloud business, has reportedly invested $300 million into artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic, a firm that also received more than $500 million from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried about six months earlier.
Details of Google Investment Partnership in AI Firm Startup
Anthropic confirmed Google’s investment partnership on February 4th but did not disclose the exact amount. In its announcement, the AI firm referred to Google as its “preferred cloud provider,” also adding:
“We’re partnering with Google Cloud to support the next phase of Anthropic, where we’re going to deploy our AI systems to a larger set of people. This partnership gives us the cloud infrastructure performance and scale we need.”
Anthropic also explained that the partnership would allow the companies co-develop AI computing systems, with the startup leveraging Google’s “cutting-edge” resources.
Also weighing in on the development, Anthropic chief executive officer Dario Amodei explained:
“We are eager to use the Google Cloud infrastructure to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. This partnership with Google Cloud will let us build a more robust AI platform.”
Anthropic looks to develop and deploy its AI assistant, dubbed Claude, into building “safe, steerable AI.” The firm has already constructed safety techniques such as the Constitutional AI, which creates more reliable and easy-to-understand AI technologies.
According to Financial Times, Google Cloud received a 10% stake in Anthropic following the investment partnership.
SBF Anthropic Investment
In the same announcement, Anthropic also confirmed the SBF capital raise in its Series B fundraising round. As the company put it, “the Series B round was led by Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX. The round also included participation from Caroline Ellison, Jim McClave, Nishad Singh, Jaan Tallinn, and the Center for Emerging Risk Research (CERR).”
Overall, Anthropic raised $580 million in the April 2022 Series B fundraiser, of which $530 million came from SBF and his former business associates. The California-based AI startup plans to build large-scale experimental infrastructure with these funds. Completing this quest would facilitate the exploration and improvement of computationally intensive AI model safety properties. However, since FTX’s dramatic collapse last November, it remains to be seen whether SBF and the sunken exchange would collect the invested sum to pay off creditors.
Some outlets believe SBF’s investment sum in Anthropic to be higher than the reported $530 million. In addition, an FTX creditor opines that the ex- CEO’s stake in the California-based AI startup tops $1 billion. Meanwhile, other observers within the crypto Twitter community wonder whether SBF’s massive stake would be channeled toward paying off creditors. The bankrupt exchange currently has a staggering debt load that a specialized team is trying to lessen following its sudden collapse.
Meanwhile, SBF remains under house arrest at his parent’s California home amid ongoing efforts by FTX’s new administrators to source funds. On January 3rd, the disgraced CEO pled not guilty to an eight-count charge laid against him, including wire fraud and misuse of customers’ funds.
SBF’s trial will begin on October 2nd.