(RTTNews) - Microsoft (MSFT) and Nvidia have struck major investment agreements with Anthropic, setting the AI startup's valuation in the range of 350 billion dollars, according to a source close to the deal.
Microsoft plans to invest up to $5 billion, while Nvidia will invest up to $10 billion. The round is still being finalized, but the commitments already mark one of the largest funding pushes in the sector.
As part of the agreements, Anthropic will buy $30 billion worth of Azure compute and secure access to as much as 1 gigawatt of Microsoft's capacity. It will also purchase up to 1 gigawatt of Nvidia's Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called the partnership a long-time goal, saying this is the first time the companies will work together closely to accelerate Claude.
Anthropic and Nvidia will collaborate on engineering efforts to tune the startup's models for performance and efficiency while optimizing Nvidia's hardware for Anthropic's needs.
Microsoft, which has invested heavily in OpenAI, continues to broaden its AI alliances even as it maintains a roughly 27 percent stake in OpenAI's for-profit business, valued at about 135 billion dollars.
Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI researchers including CEO Dario Amodei, is backed by Amazon and is known for its Claude family of models. Amazon remains its primary cloud and training partner. Satya Nadella said the AI industry must move beyond zero-sum thinking to build durable, shared capabilities.
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