Nvidia and Microsoft announced on Tuesday a combined investment of $15 billion in AI startup Anthropic, the creator of the Claude chatbot, amid an industry-wide surge in AI spending and mounting concerns over a potential bubble.
AI chip giant Nvidia committed up to $10 billion, while Microsoft—which holds 27% of OpenAI, Anthropic’s principal rival—pledged up to $5 billion to support the company behind the Claude family of AI models. Microsoft is also continuing to pour resources into its Copilot AI, which runs on the Azure cloud platform.
The investment is part of a sweeping, multi-layered agreement under which Anthropic will purchase $30 billion worth of Microsoft’s cloud computing capacity and adopt the latest generations of Nvidia’s advanced chip technologies.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the partnership in an online video, saying:
“We’re increasingly going to be customers of each other. We will use Anthropic models. They will use our infrastructure, and we’ll go to market together to help our customers realize the value of AI.”
The move marks a profound realignment in the generative AI sector, where competition is accelerating not only between OpenAI and Anthropic, but also against Google, which unveiled its latest Gemini model on the same day.
Based in California and founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, Anthropic positions itself as a company deeply committed to AI safety. Its flagship product, Claude, has quickly emerged as one of the most advanced conversational AI systems in the market.
Major tech players—including Amazon, Meta, and Elon Musk’s xAI—have collectively poured tens of billions of dollars into AI since the breakout release of ChatGPT in late 2022. Meanwhile, Nvidia has ascended as the most sought-after provider of high-performance GPUs, now considered the essential backbone of modern AI infrastructure.
Amid growing Wall Street talk of an emerging AI bubble, shares of Nvidia—the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization—fell slightly during a broader tech-sector sell-off. Microsoft’s stock also dipped by roughly 2.5%.
Sources told CNBC that the new investment round valued Anthropic at $350 billion, positioning it among the world’s most valuable companies. By comparison, OpenAI’s most recent valuation stands at $500 billion.
The major investment comes just one month after Nvidia announced it would inject up to $100 billion into OpenAI to build infrastructure for future generations of AI technology. At the time, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said:
“Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future.”
OpenAI also recently signed a $38 billion partnership with Amazon’s AWS cloud division, in addition to expanding its strategic alliances with Oracle, Broadcom, and AMD.
Nvidia’s GPUs—initially designed for gaming—now serve as the foundational building blocks of artificial intelligence applications, and competition across the tech industry to secure them remains intense. Silicon Valley–based Nvidia also recently announced a $5 billion investment in struggling chipmaker Intel, a deal backed by the White House and seen as a significant boost to Intel’s turnaround strategy.
