Meta took aim at Anthropic. It’s also one of the AI firm’s largest customers

In a recent development, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken aim at rival Anthropic, despite Meta being one of the artificial intelligence startup's largest customers. In a 6,500-word essay published on August 10th, Zuckerberg criticized leading AI labs for consolidating power and painted a future filled with doom. However, Meta has been quietly supporting Anthropic's growth by becoming a heavy user of its AI products, with internal projections suggesting Meta could spend as much as US$10 billion annually on Anthropic's AI models.

The social media giant has even used Anthropic's AI models to power and test its upcoming AI product, Hatch, which Meta views as its next breakthrough. Despite cutting back on some Anthropic spending, Meta is still investing hundreds of millions of dollars monthly in the startup's tools. The extent of their financial ties has not been previously reported.

Meta's leaders are aware that their spending could impact Anthropic as it prepares for a potential blockbuster initial public offering that could value it at US$2 trillion.