Anthropic announces massive AI chip deal with Google

SAN FRANCISCO

Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic has said it was expanding its use of Google cloud computing and specialized chips in a deal worth tens of billions of dollars.

The arrangement will include Anthropic buying as many as one million Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), which are integrated circuits custom-designed by Google.

The expansion promises to let Anthropic bring more than a gigawatt of new computing power online by the end of 2026, enabling it to meet "exponentially growing demand" for its Claude AI models, chief financial officer Krishna Rao said.

Anthropic said it has more than 300,000 business customers.

Anthropic was created in early 2021 by former OpenAI staff who felt their employer, led by CEO Sam Altman, was not doing enough to control and prevent the potentially harmful effects of its models.

Backed by Amazon, it quickly joined the major players in generative AI that embarked on a frantic race after the arrival of ChatGPT from OpenAI in November 2022, with new models being released at a furious pace with ever-expanding capabilities.

While trailing OpenAI in terms of users and name recognition, Anthropic had been considered for several months the top performer in generative AI for computer coding.

Anthropic last month launched its latest generative AI model, Claude Sonnet 4.5, which it says is the world's best for computer programming.

Anthropic is valued at $183 billion, while OpenAI's valuation has reportedly soared after a private share sale to $500 billion, which would make it the world's most valuable startup.