alt Hacker NewsIn another context I might see it as vendor financing. However given that Google and Anthropic are competitors in this segment and given that Google has previously invested in them I'd rather see this as a sort of bartered stock purchase presumably for the purpose of hedging against failure. If Anthropic wins the race and it turns out to be winner takes all and you happen to own half of Anthropic then you still win half of the immediate spoils even though your internal team lost. If you view losing the race as an existential threat then having all your eggs in the one basket is a terrible proposition.
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How can there be a "winner takes it all" situation with AI?
OpenAI lead the game while they were best. Antrophic followed and got better. Now openAI is catching up again and also google with gemini(?) ... and the open weight models are 2 years behind.
Any win here seems only temporary. Even if a new breakthrough to a strong AI happen somehow.
I wonder if Google is that much a competitor. Sure, they tried to make an AI of their own.
But they also have access to an unimaginably large data set plus reach into people’s daily lives.
Seems more like partners for world domination.
$40B is not anywhere near half of Anthropic at this point. You do get the same access as nvidia, aws, and other investors, which has value.
I look at this as Google needs a competitor. While Anthropic seems to be the flavor of the quarter OAI looks like such a dumpster fire right now that it's in Google's best interest to help keep Anthropic moving towards winning the #2 spot. I say the #2 spot because it doesn't matter how good this week's LLM is. Until someone else owns the infra and has an actually profitable business model they're all just lighting money and the world around us on fire.
I actually mentioned to a Google friend the other week that I wouldn't be surprised to see Google tipping the hat towards Anthropic soon so as to put a little more heat on OAI.
Sure, since Google is both a supplier and a competitor, it’s both vendor finance and hedging. Also, it increases their investment in AI, in general.
Arguably, too much of this kind of hedging is anti-competitive. But that doesn’t seem to be much of a problem yet?