AMD will invest up to $5 billion in AI firm Anthropic and sell it tens of billions of dollars in AI servers, strengthening its position against rival Nvidia. Anthropic will deploy up to 2 gigawatts of AMD's Instinct MI450 chips starting in H1 2027 to meet high demand for its Claude AI models. The agreement is a "circular deal," a common industry practice where chipmakers fund their largest customers to secure market share.
AMD-Anthropic investment deal
- ▪The companies will also collaborate on using Anthropic's Claude AI to improve AMD's ROCm software platform and GPU workloads
- ▪Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will invest up to $5 billion in the AI firm Anthropic
- ▪In addition to the investment, AMD will sell Anthropic tens of billions of dollars' worth of AI servers
- ▪AMD's investment in Anthropic is tied to the AI firm achieving certain chip deployment milestones
AI chip deployment timeline
- ▪Anthropic will purchase and deploy up to 2 gigawatts of AMD's latest-generation Instinct MI450 chips
- ▪The deployment of AMD's chips is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2027
Circular deals in AI industry
- ▪As another example of a circular deal, Nvidia has been in talks to invest $30 billion in OpenAI
- ▪The agreement is an example of a "circular deal," where chipmakers invest in AI companies that are also their biggest customers
Anthropic compute capacity needs
- ▪To secure computing power, Anthropic previously agreed in May to rent SpaceX's Colossus 1 facility, which houses over 220,000 Nvidia processors
- ▪Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown said access to computing power is essential for keeping its Claude AI model at the frontier
AMD competitive positioning
- ▪An Emarketer analyst said the deal deepens AMD's credibility as the "number-two to Nvidia."
- ▪The deal strengthens AMD's competitive position in the AI server market, which is dominated by its rival Nvidia
- ▪AMD has previously struck similar deals with other major AI companies, including Meta and OpenAI
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