Anthropic Held $11 Billion Physical Intelligence Takeover Talks as OpenAI Already Owns a Stake
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · Jul 22
Anthropic Held $11 Billion Physical Intelligence Takeover Talks as OpenAI Already Owns a Stake
3 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Jul 22
Summary
Anthropic and Physical Intelligence held acquisition talks this spring, confirming a weekend rumor that the robotics startup had publicly denied in a Slack message to employees.
More than $1 billion has already gone into Physical Intelligence, which was reportedly seeking another $1 billion round at an $11 billion valuation and has become a notable player in robot AI research.
Anthropic’s interest fits a broader push to gain physical-world expertise quickly: its Project Fetch tests showed a newer Claude model completed robot tasks about 20 times faster than the best human-plus-Claude team a year earlier.
OpenAI could complicate any deal because it is already an investor in Physical Intelligence, raising questions about whether it holds information rights or a right of first refusal over a sale to Anthropic.
The talks underscore how leading AI labs are extending their rivalry beyond software as both Anthropic and OpenAI prepare for IPOs after a string of recent acquisitions.