Wedoany.com Report-Nov. 19, Microsoft and Nvidia announced on Tuesday that they plan to invest in Anthropic under a new cooperation arrangement that includes a $30 billion commitment by Anthropic to use Microsoft’s cloud services. The companies said Nvidia will commit up to $10 billion and Microsoft up to $5 billion, with both parties intending to participate in Anthropic’s next funding round. Although further details were not disclosed, the agreement highlights the industry’s strong demand for computing resources as companies develop increasingly advanced AI systems.

Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration taken March 31, 2023.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a video that the companies will expand mutual cooperation. Nadella stated: “We’re increasingly going to be customers of each other. We will use Anthropic models, they will use our infrastructure and we’ll go to market together.” He also emphasized that OpenAI “remains a critical partner.” The announcement links Microsoft and Nvidia—both key players in AI infrastructure—more closely to Anthropic, which has emerged as a competitor to the developer of ChatGPT.

The move follows recent organizational changes at OpenAI that provided it with greater operational flexibility. OpenAI has since agreed to a $38 billion cloud-services purchase from Amazon.com and has outlined plans to invest $1.4 trillion to develop 30 gigawatts of computing resources. According to industry observers, these efforts aim to diversify its supply channels. However, some business leaders have expressed concern that the rapid expansion of the AI sector may exceed underlying fundamentals, noting that revenue-supporting partnerships can increase financial risks.

Analyst Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson commented on the new partnership, saying: “The main feature of the partnership is to reduce the AI economy’s reliance on OpenAI.” Luria added that Microsoft’s strategy no longer depends on a single frontier-model provider, while Nvidia is also diversifying its sources of demand.

Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, has developed into a major competitor supported by strong enterprise adoption. It was recently valued at $183 billion. The company has more than 300,000 business and enterprise customers and is projecting substantial increases in its annualized revenue run rate, with Reuters reporting last month that it could rise to around $26 billion next year.

Under the newly announced cooperation, Anthropic and Nvidia will collaborate on chip and model development to improve performance. Anthropic will also commit up to 1 gigawatt of computing capacity using Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin hardware. Industry executives estimate that 1 gigawatt of AI computing can cost between $20 billion and $25 billion.

Microsoft will provide Azure AI Foundry customers access to the latest Claude models. This arrangement makes Claude the only frontier-model offering available across all three major cloud providers, further expanding Anthropic’s market reach.