On Monday, the artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic announced the completion of a new fundraising round that values the company at $61. 5 billion, a significant increase from approximately $16 billion just over a year ago. This funding round was led by the venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners and will inject an additional $3. 5 billion into the company. Since its inception in 2021, Anthropic has raised over $14. 8 billion from various venture firms, including Menlo Ventures, as well as major tech corporations such as Amazon, Google, and Salesforce. This deal arrives in the context of heightened funding activity for leading A. I. start-ups. OpenAI is nearing completion of a $40 billion fundraising round that would elevate its valuation to $300 billion, nearly double what it was valued at just five months earlier. Additionally, Elon Musk’s xAI is reportedly negotiating a financing round that could value it at around $75 billion, up from approximately $40 billion just two months prior, according to sources familiar with the discussions. OpenAI initiated the A. I. boom in late 2022 by launching ChatGPT, which sparked a funding wave that funneled billions into various start-ups. Investor enthusiasm for A. I. companies waned in 2024, as several notable start-ups were effectively absorbed by larger tech firms such as Google and Amazon.

However, with advancements from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, which has developed a chatbot named Claude, investor interest has begun to rebound. (The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement regarding news content related to A. I. systems, a claim that OpenAI and Microsoft have denied. ) Dario Amodei and his sister Daniela Amodei founded Anthropic with the intention of creating A. I. technology that includes safety measures. They, along with other founding team members, left OpenAI after conflicts with the company’s leadership over funding and the release strategies of its technologies in collaboration with Microsoft. In a 2023 podcast interview, Mr. Amodei estimated a 10 to 25 percent probability that A. I. could lead to human extinction. However, in October, he adopted a more optimistic outlook, publishing a comprehensive 14, 000-word essay discussing the potential advantages of A. I. technologies. “I believe many are underestimating the radical potential benefits of A. I. , just as they tend to underestimate the seriousness of its risks, ” he stated.