Anthropic looks to MatX to accelerate custom chip push

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Anthropic explores MatX partnership

Highlights

Anthropic discussed buying MatX for about $7 billion.
Talks have shifted toward a potential partnership.
MatX is seeking funding at a $4 billion valuation.
Anthropic is expanding its custom silicon operation.

The companies previously discussed a takeover before the talks evolved, Reuters reported. MatX, founded by former Google tensor processing unit engineers, is now seeking fresh funding at a valuation of about $4 billion. The discussions center on technology and engineering expertise that could shorten Anthropic's path toward designing its own AI processors.

MatX could accelerate Anthropic chip push

Building proprietary processors has become increasingly important as Anthropic scales Claude and its computing requirements rise. MatX is developing hardware aimed at AI training, the computationally intensive process used to build large models.

Bringing MatX technology or engineers closer to Anthropic could provide expertise that would otherwise take years to develop internally. Creating a new generation of advanced chips can require more than a year and hundreds of millions of dollars in design costs alone.

Anthropic has already been expanding its silicon team. It recently hired Google chip veteran Amir Salek and earlier brought in former OpenAI chip engineer Clive Chan. The company has also met several other AI chip startups but has not chosen an acquisition target.

Computing costs drive the strategy

The interest in MatX comes as Anthropic commits extraordinary sums to computing. The company plans to purchase $36 billion of Google AI chips and has agreed to a $45 billion cloud-computing arrangement with Nscale. Another agreement calls for payments of $1.25 billion a month to SpaceX through May 2029 for computing capacity.

Despite its custom-chip ambitions, Anthropic is not planning to abandon outside suppliers. Its strategy remains based on multiple chip architectures, including hardware from Nvidia, Google, and Amazon.

That approach gives Anthropic flexibility while its silicon program develops. It also provides a hedge against constrained supplies of Nvidia processors, which are expected to remain tight through 2027.

MatX could shorten a costly development cycle

For Anthropic, the significance of MatX lies less in owning another startup than in gaining time. Developing competitive AI accelerators from scratch requires specialized engineers, large capital commitments, and repeated design cycles before chips reach production.

MatX offers expertise in training processors at a moment when Anthropic is trying to expand computing capacity rapidly. Its models already run across hardware from several suppliers, while demand for Claude continues to increase.

A partnership could therefore deliver some technical advantages of an acquisition without the roughly $7 billion purchase price previously discussed. As Anthropic builds an internal silicon operation, MatX could become one route toward reducing long-term computing costs and dependence on external chip suppliers.

Earlier, we reported that Anthropic prepares for a potential $2 trillion IPO.

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