Google is set to host an event next week that is rumored to cover the company’s latest features with artificial intelligence. Some of those features may be powered by a company that Google recently invested in.
As reported by the Financial Times, Google has invested around $300 million in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence startup whose technology is said to rival OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. According to the deal, Anthropic has agreed to purchase some of Google’s services to support its technology.
The terms of the deal, through which Google will take a stake of about 10 per cent, requires Anthropic to use the money to buy computing resources from the search company’s cloud computing division, said three people familiar with the arrangement.
If you’ve never heard of Anthropic but have heard of OpenAI, they are actually closer related to each other than you may have thought. The company was actually founded by former members of OpenAI who left after the investment from Microsoft.
Anthropic was formed in 2021 when a group of researchers led by Dario Amodei left OpenAI after a disagreement over the company’s direction. They were concerned that Microsoft’s first investment in OpenAI would set it on a more commercial path and detract from its original focus on the safety of advanced AI.
The news about the investment comes a day after Google announced that it will be hosting an event next week that will be focused on search, maps, and more. Many expect that the company will respond to the growing popularity of ChatGPT with its own advancements in artificial intelligence.
Google continues to respond to Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, a deal that is rumored to be as high as $10 billion. Just today, a new version of Microsoft Bing showed up for some users that seems to use OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology. The new Bing was quickly pulled, but not before some users got to try it out.
