Google agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup founded by ex-OpenAI executives, CNBC has confirmed. The commitment involves a $500 million upfront cash infusion and an additional $1.5 billion to be invested over time, an Anthropic spokesperson told CNBC. Anthropic is the developer of Claude 2, a rival chatbot to OpenAI’s ChatGPT that’s used by companies including Slack, Notion and Quora. The company was founded in 2021 and, in addition to Google, has received funding from Salesforce and Zoom and was valued earlier this year at $4.1 billion.