LG CNS makes strategic investment in Silicon Valley startup Anthropic

[Courtesy of LG CNS]

South Korea’s LG CNS Co. has made a strategic investment in Anthropic PBC, a Silicon Valley-based large language model (LLM) company. Founded by researchers from OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, Anthropic has emerged as a prominent startup in the LLM domain, along with OpenAI.

According to industry sources on Sunday, LG CNS acquired a stake in Anthropic through LG Technology Ventures LLC, an investment arm of the LG Group in Silicon Valley. LG Technology Ventures is a venture capital firm in which various LG subsidiaries participate as limited partners (LPs). Its investment, by amount, ranges from as low as 5 billion won ($3.82 million) to several hundred billion won. “Anthropic gained attention in the LLM industry last month by introducing an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, called Claude 2. LG CNS and LG Technology Ventures worked together organically for the investment in the company,” said one industry insider.

Anthropic’s Claude 2 is promoted to bring ethics to AI with its “constitutional AI” technology. Assessments say that it is less hallucinatory and relatively free from copyright issues compared to existing AI models, making it suitable for enterprise use. LG CNS has reportedly been seeking ways to introduce Claude into the domestic environment this year as part of its service models after performance verification.

The latest investment by LG CNS is part of its moves aimed at expanding its AI ecosystem beyond mere collaboration, by securing various AI models to build customized services. As customer demands become more complex, the company finds it necessary to have various AI models in its lineup, in addition to LG AI Research’s LLM model EXAONE, according to its “multi-engine” strategy.

The multi-engine strategy involves securing multiple models, allowing diverse services tailored to each customer. Since LLM development requires substantial investment, ranging from hundreds of billions to trillions of won, and because customer demands are becoming more intricate, timely responses are crucial. LG CNS is maximizing collaborations to achieve this.

Earlier, LG CNS introduced EXAONE, and in April, it partnered with Microsoft Corp. for a joint customer service project based on ChatGPT in Microsoft’s cloud service Azure. “Each company has different work and system environments, and it is of growing importance to find the most suitable technology that serves each customer’s business purpose,” said LG CNS.

Anthropic gained attention in May, raising some $450 million from investors, including big tech companies such as Google LLC, Salesforce Inc., Zoom Video Communications Inc., as well as Spark Capital. As a startup founded by former OpenAI members in 2021, it is considered one of the most promising generative AI companies in the U.S. It has released Claude 2 as a competitor to ChatGPT in North America.

LG CNS’s multi-model strategy is compared to Microsoft’s approach. The U.S. tech giant not only developed its LLM but also invested $10 billion in OpenAI, integrating ChatGPT into its services, as well as Llama 2 from Meta Platforms Inc., in line with its vision of placing various developers under its large umbrella to focus on services.

Reportedly, LG CNS has established a task force focused on generative AI within the company to accelerate service development, consolidate around 600 specialists dispersed across various departments in the company, and explore new business opportunities with generative AI.