Anthropic in early talks with Samsung on custom AI chip

The artificial intelligence company Anthropic is in early-stage discussions with Samsung Electronics to explore manufacturing a custom AI chip, according to reports on Thursday, July 2. The project remains highly preliminary, with no finalized design, specifications, or production timeline, and the company could ultimately abandon the effort.

Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI models, has not decided what the chip would be used for, how powerful it would be, or how it would fit into server infrastructure. In a statement, the company said a diversified hardware stack including chips from Google, Amazon, and Nvidia will continue to be central to its compute strategy. It declined to comment further on the Samsung discussions.

The reported move signals a strategic shift as Anthropic's financial capacity has grown dramatically. The company's annualized revenue run rate surpassed $30 billion earlier this year, a more than threefold increase from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025. This growth makes the substantial investment in custom silicon increasingly viable. In May, Anthropic raised $65 billion in a funding round that valued the company at approximately $965 billion....