Anthropic Hires Google Chip Veteran Amid Push Into Custom Hardware

Anthropic is expanding its hardware ambitions by hiring Amir Salek, a veteran of Google's custom chip program. Salek joins Anthropic as part of the company's push to build an in-house silicon business, allowing it to tailor designs and cope with supply shortages.

Salek ran Google's tensor processing unit business until 2022 and delivered the first seven generations of those chips. He will report to James Bradbury at Anthropic, which currently buys chips from various sources, including Nvidia Corp., Google, and Amazon.com Inc.

Anthropic has been hiring for its in-house silicon effort, which aims to address data center infrastructure needs. The company has also signed chip and data center capacity deals with several vendors, including UK-based Fractile and Riot Platforms Inc.