Alphabet invests $10 billion in Anthropic

Google's parent company Alphabet is investing $10 billion in Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, with the possibility of an additional $30 billion injection if performance targets are met, according to Bloomberg. The investment values Anthropic at $350 billion, the same valuation from a February funding round, and will support a significant expansion of the AI startup's computing capacity. Anthropic is already a major customer of Google's cloud services, with the tech giant powering future Claude offerings as new capacity comes online. The move marks one of the largest AI infrastructure investments to date and comes despite Google developing its own competing AI model, Gemini. The investment has drawn attention from investors, with Alphabet shares rising over 1 percent on the news to around $343, approaching its all-time high of $350 reached in early February. The company's stock has surged more than 110 percent over the past year, pushing its market capitalization above $4.15 trillion. The deal also gives Google access to Anthropic's Mythos model, which is considered too dangerous for wide release at this point. The investment arrives amid intense competition in the AI sector, with Google reportedly concerned about losing ground to Claude in the AI coding market, where Anthropic currently dominates. The transaction follows Amazon's announcement that it will invest an additional $5 billion in Anthropic now and another $20 billion in the future, building on the $8 billion it had already invested. Amazon and Anthropic also strengthened their relationship through a broader agreement that includes Anthropic committing to invest more than $100 billion in Amazon Web Services over the next decade. Meanwhile, separate reports indicate Elon Musk's SpaceX has negotiated a deal to acquire AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion, further escalating the AI investment arms race.