San Francisco startup Anthropic is often seen as an independent player in the AI space, but it has been revealed to have deeper ties to Google than previously thought, the New York Times reported, citing court documents.
Image source: anthropic.com
Google, which owns 14% of Anthropic, plans to pump another $750 million into the company this year through a convertible debt deal. Google’s total investment in Anthropic now exceeds $3 billion.
Despite the lack of voting rights, board seats, and direct control over the company, Google’s financial backing raises questions about how independent Anthropic really is. AI startups increasingly receive funding from tech giants, and regulators are investigating whether such deals give market participants an unfair advantage. The US Justice Department has previously rejected a proposal to force the sale of shares obtained in this way.
Google, which itself is developing powerful AI projects, is funding its own competitors, which clearly indicates hedging – a desire to protect against losing in a competitive struggle, to profit from any outcome of such a struggle, and to diversify risks. Amazon is also actively investing in Anthropic – to date, the size of the investment from the e-commerce giant has reached $8 billion. And this adds particular urgency to the question of what such connections mean for Anthropic and other AI startups: it is increasingly unclear whether it still makes sense to consider them as independent companies, or whether they are already complementary to the assets of tech giants.
At the Warhammer Skulls 2025 presentation, developers from the British studio Auroch Digital announced a…
In line with its new strategy, Canadian studio Relic Entertainment presented a remaster of Warhammer…
Publisher Sega and developers from the Lithuanian studio SneakyBox announced a re-release of the 2011…
Xiaomi has officially unveiled its second electric vehicle, the YU7 crossover in three trim levels:…
The ID-Cooling DX360 Max liquid cooling system has one, but very important difference from other…
As part of the expansion of the diversity of the "Laptops and PCs" section, it's…