Google gives $300 million to an AI company that Sam Bankman-Fried had previously backed.

Asian Trade TVFebruary 6, 2023

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An artificial intelligence (AI) startup company called Anthropic reportedly got $300 million from Google Cloud. It also got over $500 million from the former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, about six months before FTX crashed and burned.

The Financial Times reported on February 4 on the $300 million figure, but Anthropic confirmed the investment partnership with Google Cloud on the same day without giving any numbers:

We’re excited to train our AI systems, like Claude, with Google Cloud! https://t.co/IaqQ5lpJrP https://t.co/vOn5Cj4sPt

Related: A Democratic senator asks Apple and Google to get rid of the app TikTok.

— Humanity (@HumanityAI) February 3, 2023
In the same announcement, Anthropic also said that they had raised money from Bankman-Fried and former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, among others, as part of their Series B fundraising round.

“FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried led the Series B round. Caroline Ellison, Jim McClave, Nishad Singh, Jaan Tallinn, and the Center for Emerging Risk Research (CERR) were also a part of the round.
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Crunchbase says that Bankman Fried’s efforts to raise money took place in April 2022.

The New York Times wrote in a recent article that about $530 million of the $580 million raised came from Bankman Fried and his former business partners.

But some people think the number is even bigger.

One FTX creditor thinks that Bankman S. Fried’s stake in the AI company could be worth as much as $1.1 billion. But the creditor didn’t say more about the number.

Others on Crypto Twitter are wondering if Fried’s Bankman Stake will be used to pay off FTX’s massive debt, which has grown as a result of their recent issues.

As for the partnership, Anthropic will now use Google Cloud’s GPU and TPU clusters to train, expand, and implement its AI chatbox called “Claude,” which is similar to OpenAI’s ChatGTP.

According to the Financial Times, Google Cloud owns about 10% of Anthropic.

It’s still not clear where most of the debt will come from in the FTX bankruptcy case, but on Jan. 3, Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to all eight fraud and conspiracy charges brought against him.