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Anthropic plans to invest $50bn in building artificial intelligence infrastructure in the US over the coming years, as the start-up races to secure new computing power.
The Claude chatbot maker on Wednesday said it would develop new data centres in New York and Texas with UK-based cloud computing start-up Fluidstack. The sites will bolster Anthropic’s research and development as well as providing power for its existing AI tools.
“We’re getting closer to AI that can accelerate scientific discovery and help solve complex problems in ways that weren’t possible before. Realising that potential requires infrastructure that can support continued development at the frontier,” said Dario Amodei, chief executive and co-founder of Anthropic.
The investment follows a flurry of deals by Anthropic’s chief rival OpenAI to secure chips and computing capacity from Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Oracle and Google, estimated to be worth about $1.5tn.
The circular arrangements between companies that act as suppliers, investors and customers of each other, combined with booming AI valuations, have added to concerns about a bubble in the sector.
Anthropic has also moved to boost its computing power this year. Last month, the four-year-old start-up signed a deal to secure access to 1mn Google Cloud chips to train and run its AI models.
The San Francisco-based group also has a partnership with Amazon, which is the start-up’s “primary” cloud provider and a large investor. It has invested $8bn in Anthropic and is building a 2.2GW data-centre cluster in New Carlisle, Indiana, to help train its AI models.
Its latest agreement will involve it partnering with Fluidstack, a small start-up that this year signed a deal with the French government to build a major computing cluster in France. Anthropic said it chose the company for its “exceptional agility”.
“We’re proud to partner with frontier AI leaders like Anthropic to accelerate and deploy the infrastructure necessary to realise their vision,” said Gary Wu, co-founder and CEO of Fluidstack.
Anthropic, which was recently valued at $183bn post-money, was founded by a group of former OpenAI employees. While OpenAI has focused largely on its consumer product ChatGPT, Anthropic has targeted enterprise customers.
The group’s run-rate revenue — a projection of annual revenue based on recent performance which is favoured by start-ups — shot from $1bn at the start of the year to $7bn last month. In September the company raised $13bn from investors including Iconiq Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.