Amazon Takes $8B Stake in Anthropic, Pledges Billions for AI Expansion
Amazon's investment arm has taken a significant stake in Anthropic, a leading artificial intelligence startup. The e-commerce giant holds an estimated 15-21% stake in Anthropic via an $8 billion initial tranche and a $5 billion April 2026 tranche, with the potential for up to $20 billion more tied to performance milestones.
Anthropic has pledged over $100 billion in AWS and Trainium purchases to Amazon. This massive investment reflects Amazon's commitment to advancing AI technology and its integration into various aspects of its business.
In other news, Amazon is allocating $6.8 billion over three years to expand same-day capacity in the US under Project Mercury. The project is expected to generate an estimated $7.1 billion in economic value over a decade and break even by 2030.
AWS suffered a major outage in Bahrain and the UAE due to physical facility damage, resulting in unrecoverable data loss for some resources without external backups. Amazon is working to rebuild one availability zone in the UAE.