On September 25, 2023, Amazon announced it is investing up to $4 billion into the AI start-up Anthropic. As part of the deal, AWS will become the “primary” cloud provider for Anthropic, with the AI company using Amazon’s cloud platform to do “the majority” of its AI model development and research into AI safety, the companies said. That will include using Amazon’s suite of in-house AI chips and collaborating on the development of future AI chips.

Anthropic made a “long-term commitment” to offer its AI models to AWS customers, Amazon said, and promised to give AWS users early access to features such as the ability to adapt Anthropic models for specific use cases. In Anthropic’s press release, it said that Amazon developers and engineers will be able to build on top of Anthropic’s models to incorporate generative AI capabilities into their work.

Anthropic further emphasized that Amazon’s minority stake would not change its corporate governance structure nor its commitments to developing AI responsibly, and that Anthropic and Amazon would work together to ensure responsible use of Anthropic’s products.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati represented Anthropic in the commercial aspects of the transaction. The Wilson Sonsini team was led by technology transactions attorneys Barath Chari, Scott McKinney, Stefan Geirhofer, Shivang Patel, Jon Ye, and Brittany Von Rueden.