Amazon has announced plans to invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic, as part of a broader cloud agreement valued at more than $100 billion over the next decade — a major move to strengthen its position in the AI race.
The deal will see Anthropic commit significant spending on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build and run its AI models, giving Amazon a long-term, high-value customer amid intensifying competition across the cloud and AI sectors.
Amazon will invest $5 billion upfront, with a further $20 billion tied to performance milestones. This builds on the $8 billion it has already invested in the startup.
Cloud at the centre of the AI race
At the core of the partnership is infrastructure. Anthropic — the developer of the Claude family — will rely on AWS for large-scale computing power, including Amazon’s custom Trainium chips and Graviton processors.
The startup plans to secure up to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, highlighting the enormous energy and infrastructure demands of next-generation AI systems.
For Amazon, the agreement reinforces its strategy of dominating the backbone of the AI boom — cloud infrastructure and specialised chips — rather than focusing solely on end-user AI applications.
