The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is seeking public input on a series of high-profile tech and AI firm partnerships to assess potential breaches of merger or competition laws. The CMA is scrutinizing collaborations such as Microsoft with Mistral AI, Amazon’s tie-up with Anthropic, and Microsoft’s hiring of top talent from Inflection AI. This month, the CMA released a report highlighting possible threats to fair and effective competition in the growing AI industry.
The report pointed out an “interconnected web” of over 90 alliances and strategic investments among a select few major tech and AI companies, which it cautioned could lead to an unhealthy concentration of power and resources. Microsoft recently formed a new division, Microsoft AI, under the leadership of UK AI luminary Mustafa Suleyman, the former head of Inflection AI and co-founder of DeepMind, now under Google’s wing. Mr Suleyman’s move to Microsoft was followed by a migration of other Inflection personnel.
Meanwhile, Amazon has poured around $4billion (£3.2billion) into Anthropic, aiming to secure a leading position in the AI space, and Microsoft has embarked on a multi-year collaboration with French AI start-up Mistral, reportedly involving a £13 million investment.
Joel Bamford, executive director of mergers at the CMA, commented: “Today we’re inviting comments into the partnerships between Microsoft and Mistral AI, Amazon and Anthropic, and Microsoft’s hiring of former employees and related arrangements with Inflection AI.”
“We will assess, objectively and impartially, whether each of these three deals fall within UK merger rules and, if they do, whether they have any impact on competition in the UK. Foundation Models have the potential to fundamentally impact the way we all live and work, including products and services across so many UK sectors healthcare, energy, transport, finance and more.”
“So open, fair, and effective competition in Foundation Model markets is critical to making sure the full benefits of this transformation are realised by people and businesses in the UK, as well as our wider economy where technology has a huge role to play in growth and productivity. ”
“Given the global nature of these markets, competition authorities around the world are actively looking into AI.”
“The CMA recently committed to step up the use of its merger control powers as part of its recent Foundation Models update. While we remain open-minded, and haven’t drawn any conclusions, our aim is to better understand the complex partnerships and arrangements at play.”
A representative from Amazon said: “It’s unprecedented for the CMA to review a collaboration of this type. Unlike partnerships between other AI startups and large technology companies, our collaboration with Anthropic includes a limited investment, doesn’t give Amazon a board director or observer role, and continues to have Anthropic running its models on multiple cloud providers.”
“By investing in Anthropic, which has just released its industry-best, new Claude 3 models, we’re helping make the generative AI segment more competitive than it’s been the last couple years. And customers are very excited about the opportunities this collaboration is providing them. We’re confident that the facts speak for themselves, and hope the CMA agrees to resolve this quickly.”
