Google-backed Anthropic raises $450 million in latest AI funding

Anthropic, an artificial intelligence startup competing with OpenAI in building AI foundation models, said on Tuesday it had raised $450 million from investors including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Spark Capital.

The latest round brings Anthropic’s total funding to nearly $1 billion, making it one of the most well-funded AI startups. The company did not disclose its valuation, but sources put it at nearly $5 billion.

Foundation models are the next wave in AI, trained on a vast quantity of data that can be used for different tasks with minimal fine-tuning, instead of being task-specific.