nthropic may soon notch another win in the AI race.

The company is reportedly in early talks with Google to raise a fresh round of funding, according to Business Insider. The investment may also take the form of offering Anthropic access to additional cloud computing resources.

Though it’s unclear how much Google would invest in the round, it could value Anthropic at more than $350 billion, nearly doubling its current valuation of $183 billion, which it achieved after its September funding round. 

The rumored investment deepens the two companies' existing relationship:

• In October, Anthropic announced a partnership with Google Cloud that would give it access to more than one million of its TPU chips. Without revealing exact financial figures, companies claimed that the deal is “worth tens of billions of dollars.”
• Google also has invested more than $3 billion in Anthropic, according to the New York Times. 

These deals highlight that two main sides of the AI battles are emerging: Anthropic and OpenAI. OpenAI has largely soaked up the spotlight in recent months, forging eye-popping partnerships with tech firms like Oracle, Nvidia, Amazon and more to build out AI infrastructure worth hundreds of billions of dollars, notching the title of the most valuable private company in the world with a valuation of $500 billion and laying the groundwork for a $1 trillion IPO.

But Anthropic hasn’t been sitting idly by. The company has secured a number of massive enterprise partnerships with Deloitte, Salesforce and IBM, and has its sights set on $70 million in revenue with positive cash flow by 2028 (compared to OpenAI sitting deeply in the red due to its $1.4 trillion in commitments). The rumored funding round is the latest signal that the rivalry, backed by some of the biggest players in tech, is reaching a fever pitch.