Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, is increasing its stake in artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic to roughly $1 billion (£730m) at Anthropic’s current valuation, amid an ongoing funding round, Bloomberg reported.

The asset manager is planning to invest some $200m in Anthropic’s current round, which values the start-up at $350bn, the news service reported, citing unnamed people.

The funding is being primarily earmarked from Blackstone’s retail-focused Blackstone Private Equity Strategies Fund (BXPE), the report said.

In September, Blackstone participated in Anthropic’s previous round, when the company raised $13bn at a $183bn valuation.

In the current round, which has not yet been finalised, the OpenAI competitor has received commitments for at least $1bn each from Coatue Management, Singapore’s GIC and Iconiq Capital, in addition to up to $15bn from Nvidia and Microsoft, according to previous reports.

The United Arab Emirates’ MGX is nearing a deal to join the round, reports have said.

OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise as much as $100bn as it and Anthropic both head toward expected initial public offerings.