Why Amazon Will Invest $4 Billion In This FTX-Backed AI Startup

According to a Financial Times report, big tech giant Amazon will invest $1.25 billion for a minority stake in Artificial Intelligence company Anthropic. The deal was announced today, and already, people are making the connection between the startup and the failed crypto exchange FTX.

Amazon Takes Stakes At AI Startup, Good News For FTX?

The report indicates that the big tech giant is trying to increase its presence in the AI sector, catching up to Google, Microsoft, and others. These companies launched AI products and have poured billions of dollars into the technology.

Amazon will make its initial $1.2 billion investment via its Web Services. This amount can increase to around $4 billion in the long term. The Financial Times claims the company is trying to mimic Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI.

This partnership provides Microsoft exclusive access and integration with OpenAI’s start product, ChatGPT. Microsoft invested as much as $10 billion in the AI company.

Anthropic, valued at around $5 billion, is one of the most important competitors to OpenAI and their reign over the AI sector. Google, which recently launched “Bard,” their reaction to ChatGPT, invested around $300 million in Anthropic.

The investment gave the start-up access to Google’s cloud services and hardware. However, the new deal will replace Google chips with Amazon’s as the company attempts to gain a foothold in the sector and take market share away from Nvidia.

According to the Financial Times, Adam Selipsky, Head of Amazon Web Services, called the deal a “significant expansion of the partnership with Anthropic.” The partnership will provide the startup access to Amazon-built Trainium chips to train their language models.

Regarding the partnership, crypto reporter Colin Wu pointed out the ties between the AI startup and failed crypto exchange FTX. The now-bankrupt trading venues invested $500 million in Anthropic in 2022. Wu said:

In theory, FTX should sell the shares for more than $500 million, which is also good news for creditors

FTX and its new CEO, John Ray III, have been trying to find assets to help them make their customers whole. The company owes billions to its creditors following its blow-up in late 2022.

Almost every founder and former top executive is currently facing criminal charges. On the other hand, Ray has been filing lawsuits against every entity and individual in hopes of recovering a portion of the company’s funds.

Recently, FTX filed a lawsuit against its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, family. The crypto trading platform claims that Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman benefited from his son’s company management.

As of this writing, FTX’s native token FTT trades at $1.2, with a 3% loss in the last 24 hours.

Cover image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview