Nvidia and Anthropic chiefs clashed over chip costs in 2022, new book reveals
A forthcoming book by Kevin Roose documents a tense first meeting between Jensen Huang and Dario Amodei, where disagreements over GPU pricing and strategy left both executives unimpressed.
Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Anthropic's Dario Amodei got off to a rough start when they first met to discuss the AI startup's computing requirements, according to an excerpt from Kevin Roose's upcoming book The AGI Chronicles. The May 2022 dinner at Eight Tables, a high-end Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, was marked by friction and mutual criticism, Roose reported on X.
Before the dinner took place, Anthropic's chief compute officer Tom Brown had tried to negotiate better pricing on graphics processors by presenting Huang with a spreadsheet. The document argued that Google's Tensor Processing Units offered superior value compared to Nvidia's offerings. Huang responded angrily to the comparison, allegedly calling Brown a "bean counter," though an Nvidia spokesperson disputed this characterization to Roose.
The dinner conversation itself proved equally unproductive. Huang spent much of the evening discussing his vision for constructing the world's largest data center, but Amodei repeatedly questioned him on the topic. According to the book, Huang "just kept repeating himself," which prompted Amodei to privately remark that Huang was being "kind of Trump-like."
Apropos of Jensen/Ezra, here's a story from The AGI Chronicles about the first time Dario Amodei and Jensen met to discuss Anthropic's compute needs. Didn't go well!
Kevin Roose, on X
Despite the contentious meeting producing no immediate agreement, Nvidia and Anthropic eventually established a working relationship. Currently, Anthropic relies on a combination of GPUs from Nvidia and AMD, Google's TPUs, and is developing its own custom inference chips in collaboration with partners.
The two executives have since taken divergent public positions on artificial intelligence governance. Amodei recently published an essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier" advocating for slower development of new AI models and has met with former President Donald Trump. Huang, by contrast, has publicly rejected calls for pacing and regulation, arguing instead that companies should police themselves. He has also stated that organizations releasing unsafe products should face closure.
The AGI Chronicles is scheduled for release on October 6.