Alphabet vs. Amazon: Which Anthropic Backer Will Benefit More From the $2 Trillion IPO?

Key Points

• Amazon owns a larger stake in Anthropic.
• Both Amazon and Alphabet supply computing power to the AI company.
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Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) aren't just successful big tech companies -- they're also smart investors. One of the smartest investments that these two have made is in Anthropic. While the final figures have yet to be made public, it's widely assumed that when it goes public in the next few months, it will do so at a valuation of about $2 trillion. When it does, Alphabet and Amazon will both reap handsome rewards -- but which one is likely to benefit more?

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Investors will need to stay patient to see the exact ownership figures

Until Anthropic's S-1 is made public, outsiders can't know definitively just how much of Anthropic Amazon and Alphabet actually own. Several factors go into those calculations, including investment sizes, the timing of the investments, and the valuations at which those purchases were made.

The current estimates from analysts are that Alphabet owns roughly 10% to 15% of Anthropic, while Amazon holds a 15% to 20% stake. With Anthropic expected to go public at about a $2 trillion valuation, that means the investments will be worth between $200 billion and $300 billion for Alphabet and between $300 billion and $400 billion for Amazon. Those numbers represent huge gains compared to what they invested, and represent some of the biggest bets investors have ever made.

Because it's pretty well established that Amazon has a larger stake in Anthropic, it will profit more based strictly on those capital gains. But there's more to the story than that.

Anthropic runs on Amazon and Alphabet hardware

Anthropic takes a different approach from most model developers to running its AI models. Rather than going all-in on one type of computing unit to power and train them, it uses hardware from many suppliers, including custom chips from Alphabet and Amazon. Of course, it also runs its workloads on Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) hardware. To further mix things up, Anthropic is also partnering with Broadcom to develop its own custom AI chip. This will be something for investors to watch, as Anthropic's shift (if any) to favor one hardware supplier may create a better (or worse) scenario for Amazon and Alphabet.

However, there's one distinction between Amazon and Alphabet that's important to note.

While Alphabet is supplying Anthropic with hardware and also investing in it, it's also actively competing against it with its own family of large language models (LLMs).

On the positive side, if Alphabet's AI models aren't good enough, it could pivot to use some of Anthropic's models and still be in good shape. On the flip side, if Anthropic decides it wants to distance itself from Alphabet due to it getting too close in LLM performance, it may cease to buy or lease Alphabet's hardware.

Amazon's situation is a bit more precarious. If Anthropic were to decide that it wants to move away from Amazon's computing hardware, then Amazon would lose its primary AI model. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is closely tied to OpenAI, and Alphabet has developed its own model in-house. Amazon does not have one, so if it loses Anthropic, it could be difficult for it to compete against its peers in the cloud computing realm.

I don't foresee any of those scenarios happening, as the hyperscalers' primary objective is to advance AI as fast as possible, and these partnerships allow that to happen.

In the end, I think Amazon has the most to gain and lose from its Anthropic partnership and investment. Alphabet is somewhat in the middle, as it already has the resources to recover if something goes south with Anthropic. However, what's not up for debate is the payday these two will experience when Anthropic does go public, as even the most conservative predictions for its valuation at that point will provide them with significant returns on their investments.

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Keithen Drury has positions in Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.