Google, Anthropic unveil cloud deal worth tens of billions of dollars
By tapping into Google’s TPUs, Anthropic reduces its reliance on scarce and costly GPUs
Alphabet’s Google will supply up to 1 million of its specialised artificial intelligence chips to Anthropic, a deal worth tens of billions of dollars that deepens its partnership with the fast-growing AI start-up.
The arrangement, announced Thursday, gives Anthropic vastly more computing capacity while cementing Google’s position as both a major investor and key infrastructure provider in the escalating race to power large AI models.
The tensor processing units, or TPUs – Google’s custom-designed chips that accelerate machine learning workloads – were slated to be deployed in 2026, bringing more than a gigawatt of capacity online relatively soon, Google said in a statement.
The deal ranks among the largest commitments yet in the AI hardware arms race, underscoring the soaring cost of developing cutting-edge AI systems that require immense computing power to train and run large language models.
Google declined to comment on how Anthropic planned to pay for the TPU access. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment.