Microsoft has announced a major, multi-billion dollar cloud and AI partnership with chipmaker Nvidia and artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. The deal signifies a strategic move by Microsoft to diversify its AI investments beyond its well-known alliance with OpenAI. The collaboration was announced just ahead of Microsoft's annual Ignite developer conference. As part of the agreement, Anthropic will purchase $30 billion in cloud computing capacity from Microsoft's Azure platform. In turn, Microsoft is set to invest up to $5 billion into Anthropic, while Nvidia will invest up to $10 billion. This partnership will also see Anthropic's Claude AI models, which compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT, integrated into Microsoft's software ecosystem, including Copilot. This strategic alliance aims to provide customers with more choice in AI models and infrastructure, deepening competition in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. While some reports noted a dip in Microsoft's stock, it occurred amid a broader tech sector sell-off, making it difficult to isolate the market's specific reaction to this announcement.