Anthropic in talks with Samsung to build custom AI chip

Anthropic has begun early-stage work on a custom artificial intelligence chip and held talks with Samsung Electronics as a potential manufacturing partner, according to a report by The Information published on Wednesday. The discussions center on Samsung's 2-nanometer process technology and its advanced packaging facilities, though no detailed design or manufacturing work has begun.marketscreener

A Nascent Effort With Strategic Hires

The project remains in its earliest stages, with Anthropic yet to finalize a chip design or assemble a full team. But the company has taken concrete steps to build hardware expertise. In early June, Clive Chan — widely regarded as the second employee recruited to OpenAI's in-house chip development program — announced he had left OpenAI to join Anthropic. Chan, who joined OpenAI in January 2024 from Tesla's Dojo chip program, said in an X post that he was "deeply impressed with the team's talent, values, and ambition".alphamatch+1

Reuters first reported in April that Anthropic was contemplating developing its own semiconductors, though the effort could still result in the company choosing to buy chips rather than design them. Anthropic has emphasized that AWS Amazon.com, Inc. ↘ 0.64% Trainium, Google Alphabet Inc. ↘ 0.73% TPUs, and Nvidia ↘ 0.50% GPUs will remain central to its compute strategy, signaling a multi-vendor approach rather than a full pivot.finance.yahoo+1

Samsung's Foundry Ambitions and the Anthropic Connection

The talks come as Samsung works to revive its foundry business, which has struggled against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ↘ 1.62%. Samsung's 2nm process yield has improved to 55–60 percent, and the foundry division showed signs of recovery after securing a contract to produce Tesla's ↘ 1.10% AI chips last year.chosun

Samsung also took a strategic stake in Anthropic's $65 billion Series H funding round in May, which valued the AI company at $965 billion. That investment, alongside stakes from SK hynix and Micron ↗ 1.33%, was widely interpreted as laying groundwork for future chip manufacturing agreements. Samsung held its SAFE Forum 2026 in Seoul on Tuesday, unveiling its next-generation foundry technology strategy and plans to expand ecosystem partnerships.koreaherald+3

A Crowded Field for AI Silicon

Anthropic is not the only major AI company exploring Samsung's foundry. Google is separately in discussions with Samsung to manufacture a memory-interface component for its next-generation TPU, codenamed Icefish, using Samsung's 2nm technology. However, Samsung has also faced setbacks — Meta and OpenAI both paused or cooled custom chip projects with Samsung's System LSI division in early June. Anthropic in April signed a deal with Google and Broadcom ↘ 1.02% for approximately 3.5 gigawatts of TPU-based compute capacity starting in 2027, underscoring the company's appetite for silicon as demand for its Claude models continues to surge.noqta+3