Alphabet to Invest Up to $40 Billion in Anthropic, Boosting AI Competition

Gate News message, April 24 — Alphabet, Google’s parent company, plans to invest up to $40 billion in AI developer Anthropic, comprising $10 billion upfront and $30 billion in additional funding contingent on achieving certain performance milestones. This investment follows Alphabet’s previous 14% stake in Anthropic and will support the company in scaling computing capacity using Google’s TPU chips.

Anthropic’s annual revenue run rate now exceeds $30 billion, compared to $9 billion at the end of 2025. On the secondary market, Anthropic’s implied valuation has surged to between $800 billion and $1 trillion. In product developments, Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.7 on April 16, enhancing software engineering and vision capabilities without pricing changes ($5 per million input tokens, $25 per million output tokens). On April 17, the company introduced Claude Design, an experimental tool for creating prototypes and presentations, available to Claude Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users. Google stock rose approximately 1.2% at midday, with the broader tech market climbing 3.77%.

The investment reflects a broader surge in AI funding during 2026. In the first quarter alone, global venture capital reached $297 billion to $314 billion, with AI accounting for 80-81% of total deals. Major funding rounds included OpenAI ($122 billion), Anthropic ($30 billion), xAI ($20 billion), and Waymo ($16 billion). April continued the momentum: Microsoft committed $10 billion to Japanese AI and cybersecurity initiatives and $5.5 billion to Singapore’s AI development, while Amazon pledged $5 billion to Anthropic. Cerebras Systems filed for an IPO at a $35 billion valuation on April 17. Big Tech capital expenditure intentions are projected to reach $635 billion to $665 billion by year-end.