Google GOOGL-Q is making a fresh investment of more than $1-billion into AI startup Anthropic, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
This comes after Reuters and other media reported earlier in January that Anthropic was nearing a $2-billion fundraise in a round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, valuing the firm at about $60-billion.
The FT said that Google’s new investment was separate from the Lightspeed funding round.
Anthropic, a major competitor of OpenAI in the AI foundation model space, declined to comment. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
Google already has an existing commitment of $2-billion in Anthropic, while e-commerce giant Amazon doubled its stake in the AI company to $8-billion late last year.
Anthropic, whose annualized revenue hit about $875-million, sells access to its models directly and through third-party cloud services including Amazon Web Services. The development of large language models requires expensive computing as well as top talent.
Microsoft-backed OpenAI triggered an AI arms race after it launched ChatGPT in November 2022. The growing popularity of the company and new product launches helped it close a $6.6-billion funding round in October, potentially taking its valuation to $157-billion.