Amazon doubles down on AI with $5bn Anthropic bet

• Deal could expand to $20bn
• $350 billion valuation
• Qatar and Abu Dhabi both investors

Amazon is committing a further $5 billion to artificial intelligence company Anthropic, deepening its bet on a leading developer in the AI race as Gulf sovereign investors continue to back the company.

The deal, which could expand to as much as $20 billion over time, was struck at a $350 billion valuation and reinforces a partnership centred on cloud computing and advanced chips.

The latest move builds on existing Gulf involvement in the lab behind the Claude AI programme.

The Qatar Investment Authority was a significant participant in a $13 billion funding round last year while Abu Dhabi-backed MGX is in talks to join a new raise that could exceed $20 billion.

Anthropic plans to spend more than $100 billion over the next decade on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure, underlining the scale of demand for computing power as companies race to build more advanced models.

The AI lab will receive up to about 5 gigawatts of capacity over that period, with a significant share expected to come online this year. Gigawatt-scale power reflects the vast electrical load required for next-generation data centres.

The battle to secure this computing capacity is emerging as one of the most important fronts in the global AI race, as companies compete to train increasingly complex models and avoid the outages and constraints that have hit leading platforms.

Gulf investors are positioning themselves at the centre of that build-out. Across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, sovereign funds and state-backed groups are committing tens of billions of dollars to AI infrastructure, including hyperscale data centres and chip supply chains. 

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In the UAE alone, partnerships involving G42 – the Abu Dhabi technology group backed by sovereign wealth fund Mubadala – have driven multi-billion-dollar data centre expansions, while MGX is targeting investments across the full AI stack, from infrastructure to semiconductors. 

Control over data centres – and the energy that powers them – is increasingly seen as critical to economic competitiveness and geopolitical influence. 

Anthropic, founded by former employees from rival AI company OpenAI, is best known for its Claude chatbot and AI-powered coding assistant, which are used by more than 100,000 customers through Amazon Web Services.

The tie-up strengthens Amazon’s position in the AI infrastructure race, with its in-house Trainium chips competing against rival systems. 

Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, said: “Our users tell us Claude is increasingly essential to how they work and we need to build the infrastructure to keep pace with rapidly growing demand.”