Anthropic says the cash infusion from its latest funding round will enable it to improve its artificial intelligence platform and speed up international expansion

San Francisco (AFP) - Anthropic on Monday announced it has raised $3.5 billion in a funding round that valued the artificial intelligence startup at $61.5 billion.

Anthropic said the capital will be put to work advancing its AI systems, expanding its computing capacity, and speeding up its international expansion.

The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, and the list of those taking part included Salesforce Ventures, Fidelity Management, and Bessemer Venture Partners, according to Anthropic.

Anthropic last week released what it called its smartest artificial intelligence model to date, particularly when it comes to computer coding.

Along with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, the San Francisco-based company made available in a limited research preview a digital “agent” called Claude Code tailored to be a tool for software developers.

AI companies are pushing out new products at a fast pace and with innovations quickly reproduced by rivals, often at a lower cost, raising concerns about finding a return on massive investments.

Since OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, the race has been on to lead in a technology predicted to change the way people live and work.

AI models have moved beyond generating images, videos or written works to providing “agents” specializing in fields or tasks.

OpenAI released a version of ChatGPT about six months ago that shared its “thinking” process, but Anthropic followed that by enabling its Claude model to command computers as people do.

OpenAI responded with the recent release of its first AI agent called Operator with similar capabilities.

Anthropic, which was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, and its arch-rival are striving to stand out in an increasingly crowded market.

Amazon has invested a total of $8 billion in Anthropic, while Google-parent Alphabet has invested $2 billion in the startup.