Google's partnership with GenAI startup Anthropic is causing a stir in the UK as the trend of big tech giants backing young AI companies continues.
The Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Tuesday that it was collecting information on whether the partnership should be classified as a merger and would have a negative impact on British competition.
In October, Google's parent company Alphabet reportedly pledged $2 billion to the San Francisco-based startup that developed ChatGPT competitor Claude. It had previously invested $300 million and allegedly received a 10 percent stake in return.
The CMA is now asking “interested parties” to comment on the deal between the two companies by August 13. It will then decide whether to launch a formal investigation.
The regulator is also looking into Amazon's $4 billion investment in Anthropic as well as Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI. In addition, it has launched a formal investigation into Microsoft after the company reportedly poached core team members from Inflection AI, another startup the company had previously invested in.
In April, the CMA said it had uncovered an “interconnected web of over 90 partnerships and strategic investments” in the AI sector involving major technology companies, expressing concerns that such deals could further reinforce their existing market power across the entire base model value chain.
Last week, the CMA also partnered with antitrust authorities in the EU and US to protect fair competition in the AI sector. In a joint statement, the three authorities described agreements with major players as a major competition risk that could “influence market outcomes”.
“As an industry, we should be cautious about powerful partnerships because they pose a threat to the entire ecosystem,” said Josh Mesout, chief innovation officer at cloud computing startup Civo.
Mesout added that such threats range from unfair market practices to stifling innovation and limiting consumer choice. “We cannot leave AI to a virtual monopoly before it has really taken off.”
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