On a drunken evening in 2019, Abigail Morris and Georgia Davies ran into a discount store in Brixton, south London, and bought a cheap notebook to write down their band’s manifesto.

At the time, the rock group, then called the Dinner Party, had only three members and had never rehearsed any songs. But Morris and Davies – the singer and bassist – knew exactly what they wanted to look and sound like: ‘Gothic’, ‘Indulgent’ and ‘Decadence’ were at the top of their list.

As the English literature students moved from pub to pub, they added their proclamation, including modest ambitions (playing shows with hip British bands) and grander goals (“We want to be role models for younger girls”).

Later that evening, Morris accidentally cut himself on a broken glass and dripped blood on the notepad. “I thought, ‘This is perfect!’” Davies recalled in a recent interview. The splashes highlighted the pair’s vision for a bond that balances between the beautiful and the grotesque.

About four years later, this rigorous but playful approach has helped Davies and Morris achieve some of their goals. The theatrical rock group, now called The Last Dinner Party, has become Britain’s buzziest new band this year.

In January, the group – whose sound is often compared to the compelling pop of Florence + the Machine – launched topped the BBC’s Sound of 2024a much-watched annual poll, in which Adele and PinkPantheress were previously anointed.

At a time when rock bands are often vying for attention, the Last Dinner Party has broken through by taking a surprisingly traditional route, prioritizing touring rather than producing social media-focused hits. A North American tour kicks off Thursday, including sold-out dates at New York’s Webster Hall on March 26 and Brooklyn Steel the next day, as well as the Coachella festival in April.

Morris said this approach, which has taken the band from playing pubs to sold-out 5,000-capacity London theaters, would help them sustain a career. “It doesn’t have a long life when a viral song gets blown up,” she said. “That’s not how you build a community.”

However, a striking visual aesthetic can help. The band’s fashion sense is magpie-like, drawing inspiration from different historical eras and fantastical styles. Last fall, the group set dress codes for a UK tour and although that has come to an end, dozens of younger audience members at a recent gig in London donned outfits including floral headdresses and corsets inspired by the band’s theatrical imagery.

Even those who didn’t dress up seemed all in. Comedian Kerry Godliman, 50, said she became a fan after her daughter returned from a festival and raved about the group. “I love the grandeur of it, the camp archness of it, the theatricality of it,” Godliman said. The fact that the band consists of women and a non-binary person is “still such a rare thing,” she added.

After releasing his debut single, an expletive-filled love song called “nothing matters”, in the spring of 2023, the rise of the Last Dinner Party in Britain has been so rapid that some observers on social media have accused its members – all of whom are in their mid-20s – of being “industry factories” brought together by through reports. label executives.

Roberts, the guitarist, said she found such suggestions “pretty sad,” as if people “don’t want to believe that a young female and non-binary band can be successful.” The reality is less dramatic, Morris added: She’s been an aspiring rock star since her teenage years at a Catholic school, where she developed “a crushing need to be adored by everyone at all times and at all costs.”

She met Davies at university in London; the other three band members were also music-obsessed students in the British capital, who Morris and Davies gradually brought into their group.

With Britain going in and out of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the up-and-coming band was initially unable to perform live, instead honing their sound: moody, grand indie pop, topped by Morris’ compelling vocals. By the time of the first show in November 2021, Morris said the members had “rehearsed for so long that we were fully formed.” At his fourth show, in a remote location on an industrial estate in south London, record labels flooded the band with messages. (It eventually signed with a major, Island Records, and created a 70-page presentation to explain its vision to the label’s marketing team.)

James Ford, who has worked with Depeche Mode, Jessie Ware and Blur, produced the group’s debut, ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’, which was released last month. He said in an interview that when he walked into the studio and saw the band members with a full string section and horn section, he thought, “I haven’t seen this kind of conviction from a band, nor from the people behind them.” , long time.”

“In the back of my mind I was thinking, this is either going to go really well or it’s going to be a total disaster,” he added.

Tara Richardson, the band’s manager, said the group’s theatricality gives fans relief from the bleak political and economic climate in Britain at the moment. “People want escapism,” she said: “They need an escape.”

In interviews in a Mediterranean cafe in north London, four members of the group emphasized that while their music is escapist, it is not removed from contemporary concerns. The album contains “The feminine urge”, with lyrics mocking men who think women only exist for their entertainment, and “Beautiful boy”, attacking male privilege. “These aren’t just corsets,” Morris said. “It’s Trojan Horse pop music.”

A rapid rise in music can be mind-boggling. Mayland, the guitarist, said some recent experiences, such as attending awards shows, had felt like living “in a TV, this isn’t real.”

But Morris and Davies, the band’s first two members, said they remained focused on the artistic vision they envisioned on that drunken night in Brixton.

“It’s fun to commit to something and follow it to its logical extreme,” Davies said. For now, it will be the world’s favorite new band.

On a drunken evening in 2019, Abigail Morris and Georgia Davies ran into a discount store in Brixton, south London, and bought a cheap notebook to write down their band’s manifesto.

At the time, the rock group, then called the Dinner Party, had only three members and had never rehearsed any songs. But Morris and Davies – the singer and bassist – knew exactly what they wanted to look and sound like: ‘Gothic’, ‘Indulgent’ and ‘Decadence’ were at the top of their list.

As the English literature students moved from pub to pub, they added their proclamation, including modest ambitions (playing shows with hip British bands) and grander goals (“We want to be role models for younger girls”).

Later that evening, Morris accidentally cut himself on a broken glass and dripped blood on the notepad. “I thought, ‘This is perfect!’” Davies recalled in a recent interview. The splashes highlighted the pair’s vision for a bond that balances between the beautiful and the grotesque.

About four years later, this rigorous but playful approach has helped Davies and Morris achieve some of their goals. The theatrical rock group, now called The Last Dinner Party, has become Britain’s buzziest new band this year.

In January, the group – whose sound is often compared to the compelling pop of Florence + the Machine – launched topped the BBC’s Sound of 2024a much-watched annual poll, in which Adele and PinkPantheress were previously anointed.

At a time when rock bands are often vying for attention, the Last Dinner Party has broken through by taking a surprisingly traditional route, prioritizing touring rather than producing social media-focused hits. A North American tour kicks off Thursday, including sold-out dates at New York’s Webster Hall on March 26 and Brooklyn Steel the next day, as well as the Coachella festival in April.

Morris said this approach, which has taken the band from playing pubs to sold-out 5,000-capacity London theaters, would help them sustain a career. “It doesn’t have a long life when a viral song gets blown up,” she said. “That’s not how you build a community.”

However, a striking visual aesthetic can help. The band’s fashion sense is magpie-like, drawing inspiration from different historical eras and fantastical styles. Last fall, the group set dress codes for a UK tour and although that has come to an end, dozens of younger audience members at a recent gig in London donned outfits including floral headdresses and corsets inspired by the band’s theatrical imagery.

Even those who didn’t dress up seemed all in. Comedian Kerry Godliman, 50, said she became a fan after her daughter returned from a festival and raved about the group. “I love the grandeur of it, the camp archness of it, the theatricality of it,” Godliman said. The fact that the band consists of women and a non-binary person is “still such a rare thing,” she added.

After releasing his debut single, an expletive-filled love song called “nothing matters”, in the spring of 2023, the rise of the Last Dinner Party in Britain has been so rapid that some observers on social media have accused its members – all of whom are in their mid-20s – of being “industry factories” brought together by through reports. label executives.

Roberts, the guitarist, said she found such suggestions “pretty sad,” as if people “don’t want to believe that a young female and non-binary band can be successful.” The reality is less dramatic, Morris added: She’s been an aspiring rock star since her teenage years at a Catholic school, where she developed “a crushing need to be adored by everyone at all times and at all costs.”

She met Davies at university in London; the other three band members were also music-obsessed students in the British capital, who Morris and Davies gradually brought into their group.

With Britain going in and out of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the up-and-coming band was initially unable to perform live, instead honing their sound: moody, grand indie pop, topped by Morris’ compelling vocals. By the time of the first show in November 2021, Morris said the members had “rehearsed for so long that we were fully formed.” At his fourth show, in a remote location on an industrial estate in south London, record labels flooded the band with messages. (It eventually signed with a major, Island Records, and created a 70-page presentation to explain its vision to the label’s marketing team.)

James Ford, who has worked with Depeche Mode, Jessie Ware and Blur, produced the group’s debut, ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’, which was released last month. He said in an interview that when he walked into the studio and saw the band members with a full string section and horn section, he thought, “I haven’t seen this kind of conviction from a band, nor from the people behind them.” , long time.”

“In the back of my mind I was thinking, this is either going to go really well or it’s going to be a total disaster,” he added.

Tara Richardson, the band’s manager, said the group’s theatricality gives fans relief from the bleak political and economic climate in Britain at the moment. “People want escapism,” she said: “They need an escape.”

In interviews in a Mediterranean cafe in north London, four members of the group emphasized that while their music is escapist, it is not removed from contemporary concerns. The album contains “The feminine urge”, with lyrics mocking men who think women only exist for their entertainment, and “Beautiful boy”, attacking male privilege. “These aren’t just corsets,” Morris said. “It’s Trojan Horse pop music.”

A rapid rise in music can be mind-boggling. Mayland, the guitarist, said some recent experiences, such as attending awards shows, had felt like living “in a TV, this isn’t real.”

But Morris and Davies, the band’s first two members, said they remained focused on the artistic vision they envisioned on that drunken night in Brixton.

“It’s fun to commit to something and follow it to its logical extreme,” Davies said. For now, it will be the world’s favorite new band.

On a drunken evening in 2019, Abigail Morris and Georgia Davies ran into a discount store in Brixton, south London, and bought a cheap notebook to write down their band’s manifesto.

At the time, the rock group, then called the Dinner Party, had only three members and had never rehearsed any songs. But Morris and Davies – the singer and bassist – knew exactly what they wanted to look and sound like: ‘Gothic’, ‘Indulgent’ and ‘Decadence’ were at the top of their list.

As the English literature students moved from pub to pub, they added their proclamation, including modest ambitions (playing shows with hip British bands) and grander goals (“We want to be role models for younger girls”).

Later that evening, Morris accidentally cut himself on a broken glass and dripped blood on the notepad. “I thought, ‘This is perfect!’” Davies recalled in a recent interview. The splashes highlighted the pair’s vision for a bond that balances between the beautiful and the grotesque.

About four years later, this rigorous but playful approach has helped Davies and Morris achieve some of their goals. The theatrical rock group, now called The Last Dinner Party, has become Britain’s buzziest new band this year.

In January, the group – whose sound is often compared to the compelling pop of Florence + the Machine – launched topped the BBC’s Sound of 2024a much-watched annual poll, in which Adele and PinkPantheress were previously anointed.

At a time when rock bands are often vying for attention, the Last Dinner Party has broken through by taking a surprisingly traditional route, prioritizing touring rather than producing social media-focused hits. A North American tour kicks off Thursday, including sold-out dates at New York’s Webster Hall on March 26 and Brooklyn Steel the next day, as well as the Coachella festival in April.

Morris said this approach, which has taken the band from playing pubs to sold-out 5,000-capacity London theaters, would help them sustain a career. “It doesn’t have a long life when a viral song gets blown up,” she said. “That’s not how you build a community.”

However, a striking visual aesthetic can help. The band’s fashion sense is magpie-like, drawing inspiration from different historical eras and fantastical styles. Last fall, the group set dress codes for a UK tour and although that has come to an end, dozens of younger audience members at a recent gig in London donned outfits including floral headdresses and corsets inspired by the band’s theatrical imagery.

Even those who didn’t dress up seemed all in. Comedian Kerry Godliman, 50, said she became a fan after her daughter returned from a festival and raved about the group. “I love the grandeur of it, the camp archness of it, the theatricality of it,” Godliman said. The fact that the band consists of women and a non-binary person is “still such a rare thing,” she added.

After releasing his debut single, an expletive-filled love song called “nothing matters”, in the spring of 2023, the rise of the Last Dinner Party in Britain has been so rapid that some observers on social media have accused its members – all of whom are in their mid-20s – of being “industry factories” brought together by through reports. label executives.

Roberts, the guitarist, said she found such suggestions “pretty sad,” as if people “don’t want to believe that a young female and non-binary band can be successful.” The reality is less dramatic, Morris added: She’s been an aspiring rock star since her teenage years at a Catholic school, where she developed “a crushing need to be adored by everyone at all times and at all costs.”

She met Davies at university in London; the other three band members were also music-obsessed students in the British capital, who Morris and Davies gradually brought into their group.

With Britain going in and out of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the up-and-coming band was initially unable to perform live, instead honing their sound: moody, grand indie pop, topped by Morris’ compelling vocals. By the time of the first show in November 2021, Morris said the members had “rehearsed for so long that we were fully formed.” At his fourth show, in a remote location on an industrial estate in south London, record labels flooded the band with messages. (It eventually signed with a major, Island Records, and created a 70-page presentation to explain its vision to the label’s marketing team.)

James Ford, who has worked with Depeche Mode, Jessie Ware and Blur, produced the group’s debut, ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’, which was released last month. He said in an interview that when he walked into the studio and saw the band members with a full string section and horn section, he thought, “I haven’t seen this kind of conviction from a band, nor from the people behind them.” , long time.”

“In the back of my mind I was thinking, this is either going to go really well or it’s going to be a total disaster,” he added.

Tara Richardson, the band’s manager, said the group’s theatricality gives fans relief from the bleak political and economic climate in Britain at the moment. “People want escapism,” she said: “They need an escape.”

In interviews in a Mediterranean cafe in north London, four members of the group emphasized that while their music is escapist, it is not removed from contemporary concerns. The album contains “The feminine urge”, with lyrics mocking men who think women only exist for their entertainment, and “Beautiful boy”, attacking male privilege. “These aren’t just corsets,” Morris said. “It’s Trojan Horse pop music.”

A rapid rise in music can be mind-boggling. Mayland, the guitarist, said some recent experiences, such as attending awards shows, had felt like living “in a TV, this isn’t real.”

But Morris and Davies, the band’s first two members, said they remained focused on the artistic vision they envisioned on that drunken night in Brixton.

“It’s fun to commit to something and follow it to its logical extreme,” Davies said. For now, it will be the world’s favorite new band.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel had many unpredictable consequences, but the elevation of the International Court of Justice to global public attention is particularly unexpected.

In December, South Africa filed a case against Israel alleged violations of the Genocide ConventionAnd The court held hearings last week on a separate issue concerning the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

These two cases have turned the court into a new arena for political disputes and legal arguments over Israel’s actions in Gaza, where more than 29,000 people have been killed, many by heavy Israeli bombardment. And while the court’s enforcement powers are limited, at a time of intense interest in the conflict, the public hearings give it significant power to shape and reflect global opinion.

The Court’s high-profile role is partly a coincidence: the UN General Assembly asked the court in The Hague to issue a non-binding opinion on the legality of the Israeli occupation. January 2023. It is unlikely that we would be discussing these hearings in detail if war had not broken out in the meantime and if South Africa had not brought its genocide case to the same court.

But for now, the court, the UN’s highest judicial body, has been thrust into the spotlight and asked to intervene in a closely watched global conflict as hostilities continue.

This has created a highly unusual situation. International legal cases often move too slowly to have a real-time effect on current events, and often deal with dry and arcane topics such as fishing disputes.

In particular, the procedural rules for both the Genocide Convention case and the advisory hearings have allowed dozens of countries to participate despite having no direct involvement in the Israeli-Hamas conflict or occupation.

“What we see here, both with the South African case and now with the advisory proceedings, is that this is really being presented as a global problem,” said Yuval Shany, a professor of international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A judicial spotlight

The South African case alleges that Israel committed genocidal acts in Gaza, in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. (Any state party to that treaty can bring a case before the international court, so South Africa could do so even though the country is not directly involved in the conflict.) In mid-January, the court held public hearings.

Israel denied the allegations, arguing that statements made by Israeli government and military officials were taken out of context, and that the military took steps to save civilian lives. After the hearings, the Israeli government released a number of documents 30 secret orders which he said demonstrated efforts to minimize casualties.

.

Just under a month after the case was filed, the court issued a series of “interim measures,” similar to a temporary injunction, ordering Israel to refrain from genocidal acts, prevent and punish incitement, and provide humanitarian aid to Gaza to allow. The court, which did not require Israel to halt its military offensive, also ordered Israel to send a report within a month detailing the measures it had taken to comply with the provisional measures, a deadline that expires on Monday.

The other issue dates back to early 2023, when the UN General Assembly asked the court to issue a non-binding opinion on the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, following a General Assembly resolution on the same issue.

The hearings involving testimonies from more than fifty countries, almost all of which were critical of Israel. South Africa received widespread attention for his testimony as it once again stood up for Palestinian interests. The United States and Britain were Israel’s most prominent defenders. They asked the court not to order an end to the occupation, arguing that doing so would endanger Israel’s security.

Israel is defending itself in the genocide case, a particularly sensitive subject for the country. “Given the history of the Jewish people, it is not surprising that Israel was one of the first states to ratify the Genocide Convention without reservation,” Tal Becker, an Israeli lawyer, told the court in his speech. pick up line.

However, the country has chosen not to participate in the hearings on its occupation, calling the procedure unjustified and biased. Israel delivered a letter to the court arguing that the focus of the proceedings failed to “recognize Israel’s right and obligation to protect its citizens.” or to take into account years of agreements with the Palestinians to negotiate “the permanent status of the territory, security arrangements, settlements and borders.”

But Israel may also have decided to avoid the hearings because they place the current government in a political bind at home, Shany said. Many of these legal arguments that could improve Israel’s chances of success in court would not sit well with the domestic voters of Israel’s right-wing government. That may have been the reason Israel chose not to appear in the hearing on the legality of the occupation of Palestinian territories, he said.

“Internationally, they should reaffirm their commitment to a roadmap that could lead to a two-state solution,” he said. “And they should draw attention to the Oslo Accords, etc., while reaffirming the Palestinian right to self-determination. Which they have done on many occasions. These are their legal claims. But that wouldn’t work well in our own country.”

The court of public opinion

While the cases are clearly intended to have a political impact, the court is believed to be less subject to the kind of political scrutiny typical of other UN bodies. Judges are not meant to be representatives of the states they come from, and do not necessarily vote in favor of their home states. For example, Judge Aharon Barak, the Israeli Holocaust survivor whom Israel selected as an ad hoc judge for the genocide case, voted in favor of two of the interim measures.

And while Israel has often successfully lobbied the United States to veto UN Security Council resolutions that could open the door to sanctions, no such vetoes exist at the International Court of Justice.

But the court also has no authority to impose sanctions. The country does not have a police force or the ability to enforce sentences. And the advice on the occupation will be just that: advisory, without binding orders.

Kate Cronin-Furman, a professor of political science at University College London, said Israel’s record suggests the country may not be particularly sensitive to direct pressure from the court. When the International Court of Justice previously ruled that Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories was unlawful, it had only a “marginal effect” on its policies, she said.

This may be less true for the genocide case. The reporting requirement imposed by the court in its interim measures had created a “monitoring effect,” Shany said, that already appears to be having some political impact on Israel.

Shany pointed out a recent one letter by the Attorney General of the Israel Defense Forces, who warned troops against using excessive force against civilians, looting and other violations of the law, as an example of such political consequences. The letter said such actions cause Israel and its military “strategic damage in the international arena, the severity of which is difficult to overestimate.”

Cronin-Furman said the legal proceedings could also have a powerful indirect effect if it shifts public opinion or policy among allies Israel relies on for support, including the United States.

“Other countries that have historically supported Israel will be more sensitive to the rulings of the International Court of Justice,” she said. “If international public opinion coalesces around a consensus that Israel’s behavior is beyond all bounds, those governments may publicly reduce or withdraw their support and/or privately pressure the Israeli government, which would be far more likely to shape Israeli incentives than the direct impact of a ruling by the International Court of Justice.”

The provisional measures issued in January have not yet had that effect on the United States, which did exist last Tuesday vetoed a UN Security Council measure calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. It was the only vote against the measure. However, the United States is circulating its own resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire “as soon as practicable,” the first time it has used the term “ceasefire” since the current conflict began, and Israel would also rule out carrying out an attack in Rafah under the current circumstances.

Legal experts have cautiously welcomed the new focus on the court. “It should be an aspiration of the international community, of all states, that politically charged issues of immense moral importance are deliberated and evaluated by an impartial legal body,” said Janina Dill, professor at the University of Oxford and co-director of Oxford University. Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict. “This is how the rule of law works, this is how the international legal order works should work.”

Last May, Anthropic, one of the world's hottest artificial intelligence startups, raised $450 million from investors including Google and Salesforce. It was the start of an astonishing wave of funding.

In August, Anthropic secured $100 million from two Asian telecom companies. Amazon then committed $4 billion, followed by another $2 billion from Google.

This month, venture capital firm Menlo Ventures closed a deal to invest $750 million in Anthropic.

All told, the AI ​​start-up raised $7.3 billion in one year. The five financing agreements were notable not only for their speed and scale, but also for their unusual structures.

In one such deal, Anthropic agreed to use technology such as chips and cloud computing services from the companies that invested in it. That essentially meant that some of the money raised would be pumped back to investors. And to consolidate smaller investors interested in Anthropic, Menlo created a legal entity known as a “special purpose vehicle.”

“These deals are so complicated,” said Dave Brown, vice president of Amazon Web Services and involved in Amazon's deal with Anthropic.

Despite AI's promise to transform every aspect of society, it has begun to upend the deals of Silicon Valley startups. Young companies typically raise money every fifteen months after they have shown that their business has grown. But since generative AI – which can generate text, images, sound and video – arrived on the scene in late 2022, the rules have been thrown out as investors have fought for a slice of the hottest developers.

Few companies illustrate this shift better than Anthropic, which makes a chatbot called Claude and sells various forms of its AI technology. Over the past year, the startup's valuation has tripled to $15 billion, three people with knowledge of the finances said. Last year, monthly sales were about $8 million and expected to grow about eightfold this year, two of the people said.

Other AI startups, including OpenAI, Character.AI and Cohere, have made similar investment deals as they race to raise the most money, form the most lucrative partnerships, hire the best talent and gain access to the most computer chips. OpenAI recently closed a deal that values ​​it at $80 billion or more.

Investors can't afford to lose this play because “if you miss the winner in the room, you're more or less out of the game,” said Ilya Strebulaev, a finance professor at Stanford.

Some investments in AI startups by the tech giants have recently caught the attention of regulators. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission said it had opened an investigation into Amazon and Google's investments in Anthropic for possible antitrust violations.

A spokeswoman for Anthropic said it planned to cooperate with the FTC. The company declined to comment further. Anthropic's financing from Menlo Ventures was reported previously by The Information.

Since Anthropic's founding in 2021, Dario Amodei, the CEO, and his sister, Daniela Amodei, the president, have positioned it as a startup that would build AI with guardrails. In a podcast interview last year, Dario Amodei said the chance of that happening was 10 to 25 percent AI technology can destroy humanity.

But if that doesn't happen, he said, “things won't just be good, they'll be really great.”

From the start, Anthropic's financing was unconventional. In 2021 it is increased $124 million from investors including Jaan Tallinn, an entrepreneur known for his focus on the existential risks of technology, as well as the Center for Emerging Risk Research, a Swiss nonprofit that aims to “build a future that guided by wisdom and compassion for all sentient beings. (The group has changed its name to Polaris Ventures.)

In 2022, Anthropic increased $580 million for research into building powerful AI technologies and working to ensure they don't cause harm. The bulk of that sum — which dwarfed what venture capitalists had invested in other AI startups — came from Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, and his colleagues. They belonged to a community known as effective altruists, who have long viewed AI as an existential risk.

When FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 and control of its assets was transferred to new management, Anthropic was left with an uncertain future. Days later, the outlook turned when OpenAI released the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT. The technology underlying ChatGPT was largely developed by Dario Amodei and others who had worked at OpenAI before leaving to create Anthropic.

That brought Anthropic's attention and Google made its first investment. Anthropic also agreed to buy computing power through Google's cloud computing service, which it uses to train and operate its technologies.

In September, Amazon signed a similar deal with Anthropic, investing up to $4 billion. Anthropic's Claude chatbot was the most popular AI service offered on Amazon's cloud computing system, Amazon Web Services, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

As part of the pact, Anthropic agreed to build its AI using specialized computer chips designed by Amazon. If Anthropic becomes a success, Amazon's shares in the startup could pay off big time. In the meantime, the cloud computing deal will improve Amazon's bottom line.

The deal was structured as convertible notes, or debt that becomes equity when Anthropic reaches certain milestones, two people familiar with the structure said.

Amazon's funding of Anthropic reflected the way OpenAI raised money. In 2019, OpenAI raised $1 billion from Microsoft and spent most of the money buying computing power through Microsoft's Azure cloud service. Microsoft has since poured another $12 billion into the company, with OpenAI spending most of the money on Microsoft's cloud services.

(The Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement.)

Some investors have done so questioned such deals because companies like Google and Amazon invest money that ultimately increases their own revenues. The companies said the arrangements were kosher.

Google's investment in Anthropic is separate from the startup's agreement to use its cloud services, said Daniel Gabis, a Google spokesman. They have “always been separated,” he said.

Amazon appropriately accounts for all revenues and expenses, said Casey McGee, an Amazon spokesperson. “To suggest otherwise, or that AWS's agreement with Anthropic is anything but a normal business arrangement, is completely false,” he said.

Even after Anthropic raised billions from Amazon and Google, it knew it would eventually need more money. Generative AI startups are constantly updating, refining, and expanding their technology to make their product accurate, up-to-date, and more powerful, and that requires massive amounts of expensive computing power.

Finding new investors was easy for Anthropic. But many interested parties wanted to invest between $10 and $25 million, while the company was aiming for a much larger amount.

In November, Anthropic's head of business development Neerav Kingsland spoke at a conference hosted by Menlo Ventures, which had previously invested. Menlo proposed to lead Anthropic's next funding round, with a twist: What if the company brought all its small investors into one dedicated vehicle?

The arrangement would save Anthropic time and simplify the process. Mr. Kingsland and Anthropic's founders agreed, a person with knowledge of the talks said.

Anthropic told investors that $15 billion was the lowest valuation it would accept, two people familiar with the situation said.

After raising the $750 million this month, Anthropic is no longer conducting a formal fundraising process, a person familiar with the situation said. But investors may soon have another chance.

As part of FTX's bankruptcy proceedings this month, the crypto company asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware for permission to sell its 8 percent stake in Anthropic. FTX's lawyers said they wanted to move quickly to sell the shares alongside Anthropic's upcoming funding rounds.

FTX's understanding was that “Anthropic will continue to seek additional rounds of equity financing,” the lawyers wrote.