July 10 (Reuters) - Amazon ( AMZN ) is considering

another multibillion-dollar investment in AI firm Anthropic to

strengthen their strategic partnership, the Financial Times

reported on Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the talks.

The e-commerce giant has considered expanding its investment

beyond the $8 billion already committed in November last year,

the report said.

Anthropic declined to comment on the report and Amazon ( AMZN )

didn't immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Reuters couldn't immediately verify the report.

Amazon ( AMZN ) pumped $4 billion into OpenAI competitor Anthropic in

November last year in a bid to capitalize on the generative

artificial intelligence technology. The move doubled Amazon's ( AMZN )

investment in the firm.

The investment under consideration will help Amazon ( AMZN ) retain

its position as one of Anthropic's largest shareholders, ahead

of Google which has invested over $3 billion, FT said.

"We quickly realised that we had many shared goals that were

fundamentally critical. The size of the (existing investment)

represents our ambition," Dan Grossman, vice-president of

worldwide corporate development at Amazon ( AMZN ) told the newspaper.

Amazon ( AMZN ) is working to bolster its reputation in AI

development, after rivals such as OpenAI and Google have taken

an early lead, particularly with consumer-focused models.

Companies are also bolstering investments in AI and

employing creative techniques to hire top AI talent.