{"text":[[{"start":9.75,"text":"Anthropic has raised $65bn in a funding round that will nearly treble the start-up’s valuation and see it leapfrog arch-rival OpenAI as the most valuable AI lab. "}],[{"start":23.1,"text":"The Claude chatbot maker was valued at $900bn, not including the new investment, as part of the fundraising led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital. "}],[{"start":34.5,"text":"The round comes just three months after Anthropic raised $30bn in a deal valuing it at $350bn as the popularity of its tools for software developers and workplace customers has propelled extraordinary growth and given it an edge over OpenAI, which was most recently valued at $852bn."}],[{"start":57.4,"text":"“Claude’s latest advancements have driven large-scale adoption among the world’s most demanding organisations. This momentum positions Anthropic to lead the next phase of AI innovation,” said Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital."}],[{"start":72.4,"text":"Anthropic’s run-rate revenue, a metric favoured by start-ups which estimates annual revenues based on short-term performance, crossed $47bn this month, the company said. The more than fivefold increase since the start of the year is unprecedented for a start-up its size."}],[{"start":89,"text":"Backers are looking to build their stakes in Anthropic ahead of an initial public offering which could come as soon as this year, as OpenAI and SpaceX also race towards public listings."}],[{"start":100.85,"text":"The funding caps an extraordinary period for Anthropic, led by chief executive Dario Amodei, when the announcement of its new AI tools has rattled whole sectors of the stock market from wealth managers to cyber security groups. "}],[{"start":114.89999999999999,"text":"The power of its Mythos model, which it released to a limited group of trusted partners because of its advanced cyber security capabilities, has prompted concern from governments and financial regulators around the world. "}],[{"start":127.1,"text":"On Thursday, Anthropic said it was making progress towards a wider release of Mythos “in the coming weeks”. It also released the latest version of its Claude model, Opus 4.8, which the company said was more “honest” and “more likely to flag uncertainties about its work and less likely to make unsupported claims”."}],[{"start":146.2,"text":"The company is also embroiled in a legal fight with the Department of Defense over the military use of its technology, a battle that has scarcely dented Anthropic’s financial progress."}],[{"start":156.6,"text":"The new funding includes investments from the three leading makers of memory chips: Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix. Anthropic is an end customer for their hardware, which has increasingly been in short supply because of huge demand from AI data centres. "}],[{"start":172.65,"text":"Their participation follows other circular agreements by both OpenAI and Anthropic with cloud providers and other chipmakers, such as Nvidia. "}],[{"start":181.85,"text":"These complex arrangements between customers, suppliers and investors in the AI industry have added to concerns about a bubble in the sector."}],[{"start":189.54999999999998,"text":"Anthropic initially targeted a $30bn raise from financial institutions. The company exceeded that total in part thanks to the participation of infrastructure partners. This added to $15bn in previously committed funding from Big Tech “hyperscalers”, including $5bn from Amazon, to fill out the $65bn raising."}],[{"start":211.89999999999998,"text":"The new capital will go towards Anthropic’s effort to procure enough computing power to meet rising demand for its tools. It has struggled with capacity issues in recent months."}],[{"start":222.34999999999997,"text":"“This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens,” said Krishna Rao, chief financial officer of Anthropic."}],[{"start":235.99999999999997,"text":"The round comes as private investment giants Apollo and Blackstone were putting together a roughly $36bn debt deal to purchase custom chips designed by Google and Broadcom, which Anthropic intends to lease."}],[{"start":248.39999999999998,"text":"The two firms are sounding out rival investment groups as they prepare one of the largest private credit deals of all time. The loan will be split into multiple tranches, with Broadcom agreeing to step in to make payments to senior lenders if Anthropic misses a payment."}],[{"start":265.15,"text":"Broadcom’s support means the senior portion of the loan is expected to offer a spread of 1.5-1.75 percentage points above a benchmark compared to a yield of about 8-8.5 per cent on the portion that relies on Anthropic’s ability to meet the chip payments."}],[{"start":282.34999999999997,"text":"Apollo and Blackstone declined to comment."}],[{"start":285.4,"text":"Anthropic recently struck a multibillion-dollar deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to use one of its data centres, as well as long-term agreements with Google, Broadcom and Amazon potentially totalling hundreds of billions of dollars. "}],[{"start":298.54999999999995,"text":"Other venture capital and fund managers who invested include Baillie Gifford, Blackstone and Brookfield and state-backed investors including Abu Dhabi’s MGX and Singapore’s Temasek."}],[{"start":309.29999999999995,"text":"Additional reporting by Eric Platt and Michelle Chan in New York"}],[{"start":321.95,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780015161_5829.mp3"}