'Joint Ventures Of OpenAI, Anthropic In Talks To Buy Engineering Firms; OpenAI's Joint Venture Is In Talks To Acquire Three AI Services Firms' - Reuters

• Companies expand engineering capacity to deploy AI, sources say
• JVs to focus on acquisitions of engineering and consulting firms
• AI race expands from model development to model deployment

NEW YORK, May 5 (Reuters) - The joint ventures OpenAI and Anthropic separately created with private equity firms are in talks to acquire services companies that help businesses deploy artificial intelligence, with OpenAI's new venture in advanced stages on three deals, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The AI companies are looking to incorporate hundreds of engineers and consultants to help companies put their AI models to work, five of the people said.

The acquisitions would mark a new front in the competition for AI market share between the companies. While both have largely focused on building more powerful AI models, deploying them at scale requires a different kind of expertise — one they are now looking to buy.

OpenAI is raising roughly $4 billion from 19 investors, including TPG, Bain Capital and Brookfield Asset Management, for its joint venture, Reuters previously reported. The vehicle, called The Deployment Company, will be announced later this week, one of the people said. Anthropic is making a similar push by raising $1.5 billion from investors including Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Most of the capital raised through the joint ventures is expected to fund acquisitions of engineering services and consulting firms, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is private.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

OpenAI and Anthropic declined to comment.