Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has announced one of its biggest artificial intelligence partnerships yet, agreeing to sell AI servers worth tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic while investing up to $5 billion in the startup behind the Claude AI chatbot, reported Reuters.
The agreement gives AMD a stronger position in the fast-growing AI chip market, where Nvidia remains the dominant player. At the same time, it gives Anthropic access to the massive computing power it needs to train and run increasingly advanced AI models.
Nvidia has followed a similar strategy. The company has reportedly held talks to invest $30 billion in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
Under the agreement, Anthropic will purchase up to two gigawatts of AMD’s next-generation Instinct MI450 AI chips, reported Reuters. Deliveries will begin in the first half of 2027.
AMD said its investment in Anthropic will depend on the startup reaching specific deployment milestones.
The company has previously said that one gigawatt of AI computing infrastructure can cost tens of billions of dollars to build. AMD executives have also said one gigawatt provides enough power to serve about 750,000 US homes, reported Reuters.
Following the announcement, AMD shares rose about 0.5% in early trading. The company’s stock has more than doubled this year as investors continue to bet on demand for AI chips.
Why does Anthropic need so much computing power?
Anthropic has rapidly expanded its AI business as more companies adopt products such as Claude Code and other enterprise AI tools. That growth has sharply increased its need for powerful computing infrastructure.
Tom Brown, Anthropic’s co-founder and head of compute, told Reuters access to computing resources remains critical for the company’s future. “Access to compute is central to keeping Claude at the frontier and meeting demand from our customers,” Brown said.
To overcome capacity constraints, Anthropic has signed several large infrastructure agreements this year.
In May, the startup agreed to lease the full computing capacity of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 facility in Memphis. The data centre houses more than 220,000 Nvidia AI processors and provides Anthropic with an additional 300 megawatts of computing capacity, reported Reuters.
The company has also explored other ways to expand its infrastructure. Last week, Meta Platforms was discussing a deal to lease computing power to Anthropic in an agreement that could be worth up to $10 billion over two years, reported Reuters.
Anthropic will install part of the new AMD hardware in its own data centres while leasing additional computing capacity through cloud providers and emerging AI cloud companies, according to Reuters report.
Why is AMD-Anthropic partnership important?
The agreement strengthens AMD’s challenge to Nvidia at a time when demand for AI chips continues to grow rapidly. Large AI developers increasingly want multiple hardware suppliers instead of depending on a single company. By securing Anthropic as a long-term customer, AMD gains an opportunity to generate billions of dollars in revenue while expanding the adoption of its latest AI chips, reported Reuters.
The partnership also deepens AMD’s ties with leading AI developers. In October, the company announced a multi-year agreement with OpenAI that is expected to generate tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. That deal also gives OpenAI the option to acquire up to about 10% of AMD, reported Reuters.