The UK’s competition watchdog has launched an inquiry into Amazon’s investment of more than £3 billion in an artificial intelligence (AI) startup, as regulators step up their scrutiny of mergers involving the fast-growing technology.
The agreement, announced by Amazon in March, included a $4 billion (£3.16 billion) investment in Anthropic and a commitment from AI startup will use Amazon Web Services as its “lead cloud provider” for core functions including security research and development of future core models.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had “sufficient information” about Amazon’s partnership with Anthropic, the company behind Claude’s generative AI models, to launch an investigation.
The CMA said in a statement on its website that the watchdog is “considering whether it is or may be the case that Amazon’s partnership with Anthropic has resulted in the creation of a relevant merger situation” and, if so, whether that “has resulted in, or can reasonably be expected to result in, a substantial reduction in competition in any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services.”
A fall for AI boom companies
The launch of the survey follows a drop in share prices of technology giants and companies associated with the AI boom.
Amazon’s share price fell in part because its Financial results raised concerns among some investors that the company had invested heavily in the technology without seeing much return.
The CMA last week announced a similar investigation into Google’s partnership with Anthropic, and is also investigating Microsoft’s involvement in Inflection, the AI lab, and OpenAIthe company behind GPT Chat.
The preliminary investigation into Amazon’s investment in Anthropic is ongoing, and the CMA will decide whether to escalate the investigation to an in-depth review by October 4.
Read more about business:
‘90% chance of rate cut this fall’
Saatchi bid for Telegraph rejected
Disney returns to profit
Amazon’s response
An Amazon spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has not yet closed its investigation. Amazon’s collaboration with Anthropic does not raise any competition concerns nor does it meet the CMA’s own review threshold.”
They said Amazon does not sit on the board or have decision-making power at Anthropic, adding: “Building models is expensive and companies like Anthropic need access to a substantial amount of capital to train these models.
“By investing in Anthropic, Amazon, along with other companies, is helping Anthropic expand options and competition in this important technology.”
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25572450/080124_HP_OmniBook_X_ADiBenedetto_0002.jpg?w=300&resize=300,300&ssl=1 "HP OmniBook X 14 review: A business laptop by any other name")
