Anthropic discusses a custom AI chip partnership with Samsung

In short: Anthropic is in talks with Samsung about making a custom AI chip, but the plans are still early and unclear.

What happened

The Information reported that Anthropic has been in contact with Samsung to explore working together on a custom AI chip. A custom chip is a computer chip designed for one specific kind of work, like a kitchen tool made for one task instead of a general-purpose knife.

According to the report, Anthropic has not decided what the chip would be used for, how it would fit into its servers (the powerful computers that run online services), or how powerful it would be.

Anthropic told TechCrunch that it plans to keep a mix of chips from Google, Amazon, and Nvidia as a key part of its computing approach. On the possibility of a Samsung partnership, the company said it had nothing more to add.

The talks follow earlier reporting from Reuters in April that Anthropic was considering making its own chips, partly as a response to chip shortages. The news also comes about a week after OpenAI, a major competitor, announced its own custom AI chip through a partnership with Broadcom.

Samsung already plays a big role in AI hardware. TechCrunch notes that Samsung works closely with Nvidia, including producing chips Nvidia needs to train or run AI models.

Why it matters

AI systems need large numbers of chips, and those chips can be expensive and hard to get. If more AI companies design their own chips, it could reduce their reliance on Nvidia and possibly lower costs over time, which can affect the price and speed of AI services people use.

Source: TechCrunch AI