Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind Claude, is reportedly in talks to acquire Israeli AI startup Decart for around $6 billion, in what could become the company’s largest acquisition to date. The discussions are still ongoing, and no final agreement has been reached, meaning the deal could still change or fall apart.
The potential acquisition comes at a time when competition among major AI companies is becoming increasingly intense. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and other technology companies are spending billions of dollars on computing infrastructure, advanced AI models and specialised technology as businesses and consumers rapidly adopt generative AI.
For Anthropic, Decart is particularly attractive because of its work on making AI computing more efficient. Decart develops software designed to help AI chips operate more efficiently, which can potentially lower the cost of training and running AI models. For an AI company such as Anthropic, where computing power is one of the biggest expenses, improving efficiency could have a direct impact on costs and the company’s ability to serve more customers.
Decart is also working on real-time generative AI and so-called world models. Its technology can be used to modify or generate video and other interactive experiences with very low latency. This is an area that could become increasingly important as AI moves beyond chatbots and text generation into gaming, robotics, entertainment and other applications that require AI systems to respond almost instantly.
If the acquisition is completed, Decart’s team is expected to join Anthropic’s inference and performance organisation. Bringing the startup’s engineers and technology into Anthropic could help the company improve how its AI models operate after training, particularly when millions of users are accessing AI services at the same time.
The reported $6 billion price tag would be substantial. It would also show how valuable specialised AI infrastructure and engineering talent have become. Decart was founded in 2023 and has attracted major technology investors, including NVIDIA, Sequoia Capital and Benchmark. In May, the startup announced a $300 million funding round, taking its total funding to more than $450 million.
Anthropic has traditionally been less aggressive with acquisitions than some of its competitors. However, that approach appears to be changing. The company has been looking at acquisitions that could strengthen its models, products and underlying technology. Earlier reports also indicated that Anthropic was considering more startup deals as it expanded its capabilities.
The Decart discussions also highlight a major challenge facing the AI industry: computing capacity. Developing increasingly powerful AI systems requires enormous amounts of specialised processors, data centres and electricity. Improving the efficiency of existing hardware can therefore be almost as important as buying more hardware.
Anthropic is also facing growing demand for its Claude products while preparing for a possible public listing. The company has been investing heavily in computing resources to support its expansion. A technology that allows Anthropic to get more performance from its existing infrastructure could become strategically valuable as demand continues to increase.
For the broader AI industry, the potential deal is another sign that the competition is moving beyond simply building better AI models. Companies are increasingly competing over chips, data centres, inference technology, engineering talent and specialised startups.
If Anthropic completes the acquisition, Decart could give the company an important advantage in AI performance and efficiency. But until a formal agreement is announced, the reported transaction should be viewed as a potential deal rather than a completed acquisition.
