Nvidia Corp. NVDA and Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL have made the decision to invest in the artificial intelligence startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.

Investment Details and Technology Collaboration

What Happened: Reuters reports that the exact terms of Nvidia’s and Alphabet’s investments in SSI remain undisclosed. However, earlier this week, Alphabet’s cloud division announced a deal to supply SSI with access to its proprietary AI chips, known as tensor processing units (TPUs).

Initially intended for internal use, Google is now expanding its external sales of TPUs to support AI research, as noted by Darren Mowry, who manages Google’s startup collaborations.

AI developers predominantly rely on Nvidia’s GPUs, which lead the market with over 80% of the share. Surprisingly, SSI plans to primarily use Google’s TPUs instead of Nvidia’s GPUs in its AI operations.

Market Dynamics in AI Chip Technology

Google Cloud currently offers access to both Nvidia GPUs and its TPUs, which are crucial for training leading AI models, including those from Anthropic, a rival of OpenAI backed by significant investments from Google and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN.

Moreover, Amazon has developed its own AI chips—Trainium and Inferentia—to compete in the AI infrastructure market. In 2023, Amazon revealed that Anthropic plans to use its chips for system development.

Last December, Amazon introduced a supercomputer powered by numerous in-house processors, with Anthropic listed as the first user.

Despite these advancements, sources indicate that Anthropic continues to utilize Google’s TPUs and hasn’t reduced its investment in them, according to the report.

The Importance of AI Startup Investments

Why It Matters: The trend among cloud giants investing in AI startups that develop foundational models and also serve as infrastructure clients is growing. Amazon and Google have both invested in Anthropic, while Microsoft has made significant investments in OpenAI. Nvidia supports both OpenAI and Elon Musk’s venture, xAI.

SSI has achieved a valuation of $32 billion in a funding round led by Greenoaks, making it one of the most closely monitored entities in the AI sector.

Additionally, Mira Murati, another former executive at OpenAI, is reportedly seeking to raise $2 billion for her new AI venture, Thinking Machines Lab.

Amazon currently holds an impressive growth score of 94.18%, as per Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings. You can compare this score with other companies like Nvidia and Alphabet by clicking here.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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