Anthropic eyes $6B Decart AI acquisition in major AI deal


Anthropic PBC is in talks to buy the artificial intelligence startup Decart AI for about $6 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

Decart makes so-called world models, which aim to simulate the physical world, as well as software that can reduce the cost of training AI by helping chips work more efficiently. The latter tech could help Anthropic’s existing infrastructure absorb more demand, according to a person familiar with the matter. Anthropic, which rarely makes large acquisitions, has been spending heavily on computing power to develop new products and serve customers.

The deal has not been finalized and talks could fall through, said some of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private negotiations. If completed, it would mark Anthropic’s largest known acquisition, ahead of a hotly anticipated initial public offering.

Decart’s team would join Anthropic’s inference and performance organization, one of the people said.

Decart’s world models are aimed at helping businesses in a range of applications including autonomous driving and e-commerce. Its Lucy AI model, for instance, can take in live video of a person and use it to generate a real-time, high-resolution video that makes it look like the person is actually trying on a dress or a bag — a task that long bedeviled fashion e-commerce tech developers. Realistic rendering of fabrics has long been a sticking point. E-commerce platform eBay Inc., an investor in the company, is also a Decart customer.

Decart’s ability to use AI to modify live video feeds instantly is indicative of high-quality infrastructure talent, one of the people said.

Representatives for Anthropic and Decart declined to comment.

Decart said in May it raised $300 million in a funding round led by Radical Ventures, with Nvidia Corp., Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners and Adobe Ventures joining the round. Prior investors Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Zeev Ventures also participated. The round valued the startup at almost $4 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, up from $3.1 billion in August 2025.

The startup was founded in 2023 by three Israeli engineers, brothers Dean and Orian Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev.

During an interview on stage with Bloomberg News at the Raise AI conference in Paris in July, Chief Executive Officer Dean Leitersdorf said the company trains its AI on text and millions of hours of video to get a grasp of simulating real-world properties of physics. He said Decart’s technology is being used for live streaming on online platforms like Twitch, TikTok, and YouTube by influencers such as CodeMiko, as well as by advertising companies and others.

“I really can’t imagine being in any other market,” he said at the time. “This market is moving so fast. We get to reinvent every different aspect of the economy in the next 18 to 24 months.”

The Israeli business media outlet Calcalistech reported that Decart was also in talks to be acquired by SpaceX; billionaire Elon Musk called the report “fake news” on his X social media platform.

OpenAI and Anthropic have each committed to spending tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars on data centers stocked with costly chips. Increasingly, the firms are relying on hardware from a mix of providers to meet their surging computing needs. Those expenses, which they say are necessary to build and support cutting-edge models, may also weigh on the AI startups as they prepare to make their Wall Street debuts in the coming months. Bloomberg






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