Collect Them All (AI Edition)

When I was a kid, I distinctly remember the phrase "collect them all" as a marketing slogan used to upsell toys and other collectables. As a completist, this always worked on me – honestly, still does. It also sure seems to work on Big Tech when it comes to AI.

With the news today that Microsoft and NVIDIA are now making investments in Anthropic – naturally alongside a pledge from Anthropic to spend at least $30B on Azure, because you can't have a tit without a tat – I'm honestly sort of at a loss for how to frame this. Everything is just so tangled and interwoven at this point. I mean, this is a company which owns 27% of OpenAI investing in their main rival. And, to be fair, it comes after OpenAI signed deals with all of Microsoft's main rivals in the cloud. So instead, I'll just assume from now on that all bets are off because all bets are on.

Still, I feel the need to list out some of this conflicted mess just for my own sanity and so I can keep referencing and checking it as I write about tangential topics. Really, it's just an expansion of a list I made in July when noting just how hedged Big Tech was now thanks to their massive investments in these AI companies.

This is just the latest such deal, but obviously won't be the last.

For this list, I'm just going to keep it to the large tech companies investing in several other companies also on this list and the larger AI companies also taking those investments. I'm also going to stick to investments directly off balance sheets — i.e. no GV investments, where I of course worked for many years, and had to always give the spiel that we weren't meant to be strategic to Google :)

For "Other deals" I'll include companies where there's a relationship but a direct investment isn't involved (at least not known or not yet). I'll try to keep this updated...

**Amazon Investor in: **Anthropic • Databricks • Hugging Face • OpenAI • Scale AI Investment from: N/A Other deals: Cerebras

** AMD Investor in: **Cohere • Hugging Face • Scale AI • Thinking Machine Lab • World Labs Investment from: OpenAI • Meta Other deals:

**Anthropic Investor in: **N/A Investment from: Amazon • Google • Microsoft • NVIDIA Other deals: Apple • Broadcom

** Apple Investor in: N/A Investment from: N/A Other deals: Anthropic •** Google • OpenAI

** Broadcom Investor in: N/A Investment from: N/A Other deals: Anthropic •** Google • Meta • OpenAI

** Cisco Investor in: **Anthropic • Cohere • CoreWeave • Mistral • Scale AI • Thinking Machine Lab • xAI Investment from: N/A Other deals: Microsoft

** Cohere Investor in:** N/A Investment from: AMD • Cisco • NVIDIA • Oracle • Salesforce Other deals: CoreWeave

** CoreWeave Investor in: **N/A Investment from: Microsoft • NVIDIA • OpenAI Other deals: IBM • Meta • Mistral • Cohere

** Databricks Investor in: N/A Investment from: Amazon •** Microsoft • NVIDIA • Salesforce Other deals: Google

** Google Investor in: **Anthropic • Hugging Face • Safe Superintelligence Investment from: N/A Other deals: Broadcom • Databricks • NVIDIA • OpenAI • Thinking Machine Lab

** Hugging Face Investor in: **N/A Investment from: Amazon • AMD • Google • IBM • Intel • NVIDIA • Salesforce Other deals:

**Intel Investor in: **Hugging Face Investment from: NVIDIA • SoftBank • US Government Other deals: Amazon • Google • Microsoft

** Meta Investor in: AMD • Databricks •** Safe Superintelligence •**** Scale AI Investment from: N/A Other deals: Black Forest Labs •**** Broadcom •**** Midjourney • NVIDIA

** Microsoft Investor in:** Anthropic • Databricks • Mistral • OpenAI Investment from: N/A Other deals: NVIDIA

** Mistral Investor in:** N/A Investment from: ASML • Cisco • IBM • Microsoft • NVIDIA • Salesforce • Samsung Other deals:

**NVIDIA Investor in: **Anthropic • Cohere • CoreWeave • Mistral • Nokia • OpenAI • Perplexity • Safe Superintelligence • Scale AI • Thinking Machine Lab • xAI Investment from: SoftBank (exited) Other deals: Literally everyone, except maybe Apple

OpenAI Investor in: AMD • Cerebras • CoreWeave Investment from: Amazon • Disney •**** Microsoft • NVIDIA • Oracle • SoftBank Other deals: Almost everyone, except Anthropic, Meta, and xAI

** Oracle Investor in: **Ampere • Cohere • OpenAI Investment from: N/A Other deals: NVIDIA • SoftBank

** Salesforce Investor in: **Anthropic • Cohere • Databricks • Hugging Face • Mistral • World Labs Investment from: N/A Other deals:

**Scale AI Investor in: **N/A Investment from: Amazon • AMD • Cisco • Meta • NVIDIA Deals with:

SoftBank Investor in: Ampere • Intel •**** NVIDIA (exited) •**** OpenAI Investment from: N/A Deals with: Oracle

** xAI Investor in: **N/A Investment from: AMD • Cisco • NVIDIA • SpaceX • Tesla Deals with: Black Forest Labs • Microsoft • Oracle

So there you go, while NVIDIA is obviously out there like Thanos collecting Infinity Stones, others are more subtle in their strategic bets. Special shout-out to Cisco, which kept unexpectedly coming up as I was putting together the list.

It also sure feels like with this latest news we're mere weeks away from Google and/or Amazon investing in OpenAI, completing the ouroboros. Apple? All totally cool, right? Since this isn't "zero sum" per Nadella...1

Anyway, I'm off to play Clue. Or Pokemon.

I can't believe they don't break into a rendition of "Kumbaya" to close...

👇

Previously, on Spyglass...

Big Tech’s Big Hedge with Big AILarge investments means sizable stakes for the last wave of technology in the next wave of technology…SpyglassM.G. SieglerThe Stargate Data Center Layer CakeJPMorgan -> Crusoe -> Blue Owl -> Oracle -> NVIDIA -> SoftBank -> OpenAI ->…SpyglassM.G. SieglerBig Tech’s Big Stakes in Big AIAs the valuations get bigger, the stakes go higher, quite literally…SpyglassM.G. Siegler

1 Narrator: as it turns out, it was not "totally cool" in the end, as many of these conflicted sides and companies would fight tooth and nail for market share. ↩