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Amazon’s $4 billion investment, and partnership, with AI startup Anthropic, is being investigated by the United Kingdom’s competition regulator.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Thursday it was commencing an initial probe into the deal, which will provide clearance or trigger a fuller, in-depth study.
This development comes just days after the body initiated a similar action on Google parent Alphabet’s relationship with Anthropic, the developer of Claude, a major chatbot rival to ChatGPT.
The CMA is now looking to see if any merger situation has been created as a result of the partnership with the global e-commerce giant, with the “Phase 1” decision to be reached by Oct. 4.
A spokesperson for the American multinational firm strongly refuted the need for a review, insisting the business relationship does not pose any competition concerns, “Amazon holds no board seat nor decision-making power at Anthropic, and Anthropic is free to work with any other provider (and indeed has multiple partners).”
The same sentiment was expressed by the AI research company, with its statement presenting an assured position on its operations, “Our strategic partnerships and investor relationships do not diminish our corporate governance independence or our freedom to partner with others.”
Anthropic said it would meet the CMA with full transparency on its relationship with Amazon and cooperate with the investigation.
CMA has announced that it is opening a phase 1 merger investigation into Amazon's minority investment into AI company Anthropic. This means the CMA thinks that this amounts to an acquisition of "material influence" and that it could harm competition https://t.co/zpKaQNfDEE pic.twitter.com/GBNnqVBDJ1
— Kay Jebelli 🇺🇦 (@KayJebelli) August 8, 2024
Why is the CMA pursuing these investigations?
Back in March, a $4 billion agreement was confirmed, providing Amazon investment into Anthropic with a reciprocal agreement for the AI startup to use Amazon Web Services as its main cloud provider.
The CMA has the authority to take action on anti-competitive behavior in the U.K. The body fears the power and reach of big tech firms under the guise of investment and collaboration can gain leverage over smaller, less established AI companies.
Other live matters include Microsoft’s links with AI firm Inflection, and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, while the CMA has closed a similar study into the U.S. tech giant’s relationship with a French company, Mistral.
Image credit: Via Ideogram
