ChatGPT's biggest chatbot competitor, Anthropic's Claude 2, is launching in many more regions. It is now available in 95 countries.
Notably, there is still no EU country on the list. Anthropic does not give a reason for this. It could have something to do with multi-language support, data privacy - Canada isn't served either - or available computing power. Anthropic says it is working to add support for more countries "in the coming months".
According to Anthropic, millions of users have used the chatbot since Claude 2 launched in July. The startup does not provide specific numbers. Following OpenAI's lead, Anthropic is offering limited free access to the chatbot, which can be used without restrictions for $20.
Anthropic wins Amazon as investor and strategic partner
Among Anthropic's investors is Amazon. The e-commerce giant has announced that it will invest up to four billion dollars in the AI startup. Amazon secured a minority stake in the company, which started in 2021 and closed a $450 million funding round in May 2023.
That's not quite on the same level as Microsoft's commitment to OpenAI, but it could be enough to make Amazon a major player in generative AI in addition to its AWS services.
Amazon will give its customers preferred access to Anthropic Foundation's models, including the Claude chatbot, while Anthropic will move much of its software to Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure. In addition, the startup's AI models will be trained using Amazon's own Trainium and Inferentia AI chips.
Amazon and Anthropic have been working together since at least April 2023. As part of its Bedrock service, Amazon enables large enterprises to optimize language models with their data, using Claude as the foundation. Under the new agreement, AWS customers will have earlier access to new capabilities for customizing and refining Anthropic's models.
For Amazon, the strengthened partnership primarily means access to Anthropic's AI models and chatbots like Claude. In return, the startup will receive computing power and funding to further develop its AI.
Anthropic is already looking for additional backers. Google is also said to be in talks for another $2 billion funding round at a valuation of up to $30 billion. The search giant may have a strategic interest in backing a competitor to OpenAI and Microsoft, which have set their sights on Google's search market.
