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Artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic is in early talks to more than double its valuation to more than $150bn in a new funding round, giving it additional firepower to keep pace with rivals building advanced AI models.

The competitor to Sam Altman’s OpenAI was in the preliminary stages of funding discussions with investors and had received interest from backers willing to value the business at more than $150bn, a massive jump from Anthropic’s current $61.5bn price tag, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

Final terms have not been fixed, but the four-year old company was expected to raise at least $3bn, two of the people said, with one adding the round could reach up to $5bn.

The start-up had spoken to a number of large Middle Eastern investors and received interest from MGX, Abu Dhabi’s vast AI investment fund, about joining the new round, according to two of the people.

Anthropic has resisted raising money directly from the Middle East, although another Abu Dhabi state fund linked to MGX purchased almost $500mn of Anthropic shares from bankrupt crypto exchange FTX last year.

In a note to staff this week, chief executive Dario Amodei warned that taking investment from the Middle East could “enrich dictators”.

But he said: “Unfortunately, I think ‘no bad person should ever benefit from our success’ is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on.” The note was first reported by Wired.

Anthropic and MGX declined to comment.

The group is changing tack amid a fierce battle for funding with OpenAI and others that has seen start-ups look beyond Silicon Valley to sovereign wealth funds.

Anthropic is backed by Google and Amazon. The FT previously reported that Amazon has discussed plans for further investment beyond its current $8bn commitment. The investment would ensure that it remains one of Anthropic’s largest shareholders.

Anthropic is racing OpenAI, Elon Musk’s xAI and Big Tech rivals including Google and Meta to develop AI models capable of producing text, code and images. OpenAI has so far led the race with consumers, with its ChatGPT chatbot amassing more than 500mn weekly users.

OpenAI was valued at $300bn earlier this year and is the in process of raising tens of billions of dollars from investors led by SoftBank. MGX also invested in OpenAI last year and has partnered with the company on its “Stargate” data centre project.

Anthropic’s Claude has emerged as a significant player in coding, an increasingly important use for the nascent technology. But the start-up and its rivals are still jostling for a durable lead.

OpenAI was expected to release its latest model, GPT5, in the next month, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. OpenAI declined to comment.