Google's big Anthropic bet

Google and Anthropic said Friday that Google will invest $10 billion now, with the deal rising to as much as $40 billion if Anthropic hits performance targets. (cnbc.com) (bloomberg.com) Anthropic said the initial cash comes at a $350 billion valuation and will support a significant expansion of the company’s computing capacity. Bloomberg reported the remaining $30 billion is contingent on milestones. (bloomberg.com) (techcrunch.com) That makes the relationship tighter between two companies that are both partners and rivals. Google sells Anthropic cloud infrastructure and tensor processing units, while Google’s Gemini models compete with Anthropic’s Claude models. (cnbc.com) (bloomberg.com) The immediate issue is compute, the data-center power and chips needed to train and run large AI models. Anthropic said on April 6 that it had signed a new agreement with Google and Broadcom for multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity starting in 2027. (anthropic.com) (googlecloudpresscorner.com) TechCrunch reported that a Broadcom securities filing put that earlier Google-Broadcom-Anthropic arrangement at about 3.5 gigawatts. It also reported the new Google package provides a fresh 5 gigawatts of capacity over five years, with room to scale further. (techcrunch.com) (crn.com) The timing is notable because Amazon expanded its own Anthropic deal on April 20. Amazon said it would invest $5 billion immediately and up to another $20 billion later, building on the $8 billion it had already invested since 2023. (aboutamazon.com) (anthropic.com) Anthropic has been raising money at a rapid pace. On February 12, the company said it raised $30 billion in Series G funding at a $380 billion post-money valuation led by GIC and Coatue. (anthropic.com) Google’s earlier Anthropic backing dates to 2023, when it invested $300 million for about a 10% stake, and CNBC reported Google had put in more than $3 billion before Friday’s announcement. (cnbc.com) The new agreement shows where the AI race has moved: not just into model launches, but into long-term claims on cash, chips, cloud contracts, and electricity. Google is paying to stay close to a company it also has to beat. (axios.com) (cnbc.com)