Microsoft, Nvidia invest $15B in AI startup Anthropic

Three of the biggest names in artificial intelligence are teaming up to push the industry forward. Microsoft and Nvidia announced plans to invest up to $15 billion in Anthropic, the growing rival to OpenAI.

In exchange, Anthropic will spend $30 billion on Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, which run on Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips.

The partnership shows how tech giants now need each other, even when they compete and disagree on policies. It has also raised concerns about risky “circular” financing, in which a company signs a deal to buy from another firm, and the latter, in turn, buys products and services from the first.

Microsoft already invests heavily in ChatGPT maker OpenAI, while Nvidia and Anthropic leaders have publicly disagreed over chip policies and how many jobs AI could replace.

With the deal, Anthropic’s Claude models will be available on Microsoft Azure, giving more businesses access to the technology.

The move is part of a bigger rush to build massive data centers, as companies race to develop powerful AI tools and don’t want to fall behind in the global AI boom.