Amazon (AMZN +1.48%) has many moving parts. For starters, there’s the company’s massive e-commerce business. Then, there’s the company’s main profit center, cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon’s advertising business is a powerhouse in the making as well.

However, alongside these strong-performing segments is an equity position that could yield a 12-figure windfall. I’m talking, of course, about Amazon’s equity position in Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) start-up gearing up to go public soon and becoming one of the hottest AI stocks out there.

Amazon is betting big on the company behind Claude

Founded just five years ago, Anthropic, best known for its Claude series of large language models (LLMs), has fast become one of the leading names in the generative AI space. Instrumental in Anthropic’s rise has been securing billions in funding. Among numerous institutional and corporate investors, Amazon has been one of, if not the, largest outside investors in the company.

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Amazon has so far invested $13 billion into Anthropic stock, with the option to invest an additional $20 billion if the AI start-up hits certain milestones. The tech giant certainly has deep pockets, but this big AI bet also benefits AWS.

As part of the ongoing collaboration between the two companies, Anthropic has agreed to spend at least $100 billion over 10 years on AWS’s cloud computing services, which entails using Amazon’s proprietary Trainium AI chips.

In other words, Amazon is winning in more ways than one from its investment in Anthropic. Besides giving it exposure to one of the most promising AI companies, Amazon’s AWS is benefiting from this company’s burgeoning demand for AI infrastructure.

A $200 billion windfall?

Amazon’s own financial filings indicate that, as of March 31, Amazon valued its Anthropic position at just over $74 billion, with $42.2 billion representing the value of Anthropic convertible notes held by Amazon and the balance representing Amazon’s position in Anthropic nonvoting preferred stock. At the time, Anthropic was valued at around $380 billion. But following its most recent funding round, it now has a valuation of $965 billion.

Amazon’s true ownership percentage will only come out when Anthropic’s S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission becomes public information. However, published reports indicate that Amazon has between a 15% and 20% stake in the AI company.

If those figures are accurate, then Amazon’s original $13 billion investment would be valued at $145 billion and $193 billion. So even before Anthropic goes public, Amazon is sitting on as much as $180 billion in potential gains from its total investment to date.

If Anthropic’s valuation climbs to even loftier levels once the AI start-up goes public, Amazon’s windfall from its investment could easily reach $200 billion. And while $200 billion may be a drop in the bucket for Amazon and its $2.7 trillion market cap, increased attention on Amazon’s massive gains on its Anthropic investment, coupled with speculation about Anthropic’s growing demand for AWS’s AI infrastructure, may bode well for this tech stock’s performance.