Overview
- Anthropic is holding early-stage discussions with Samsung Electronics about having Samsung manufacture a custom AI chip on its 2-nanometer process, according to multiple July 2 reports.
- The project is conceptual only at this point with no detailed design or fabrication work started and Anthropic may choose not to proceed.
- Anthropic has hired Clive Chan, an early member of OpenAI’s chip team, signaling an in-house engineering buildout to explore proprietary silicon.
- The company says it will continue to rely on Nvidia GPUs, AWS Trainium, and Google TPUs for most compute needs, and it is also talking with other chip suppliers including Microsoft and Fractile.
- If Samsung becomes a manufacturing partner it would matter because Samsung is the only foundry among Anthropic’s recent strategic investors and a contract could pressure TSMC’s lead while exposing Samsung to yield and competitiveness risks at cutting-edge nodes.