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Key Takeaways
- The U.K.’s antitrust watchdog instrumentality announced a formal investigation into Amazon’s partnership with Anthropic.
- The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it is examining whether the partnership formalities as an unofficial merger.
- AI partnerships between Google and Anthropic as well as Microsoft and Inflection have also drawn prominence from the CMA.
- Big tech companies’ AI partnerships have come under scrutiny as antitrust agencies raise competition concerns.
The U.K.’s antitrust watchdog power announced a formal investigation into Amazon’s (AMZN) artificial intelligence (AI) partnership with Anthropic, making it the latest in the series of administration antitrust agencies to scrutinize the relationships between big tech companies and AI startups.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said Thursday it is analysing the partnership between Amazon and Anthropic to determine if the relationship between the companies is effectively a merger.
The CMA said it expects to herald whether the partnership merits a second investigation phase on Oct. 4.
Other AI Partnerships Face Regulatory Scrutiny
The news put in an appearance not long after the CMA said in July it was examining the relationship between Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) and Anthropic underneath similar grounds, as several big tech companies’ AI partnerships face scrutiny from antitrust regulators in the U.K., the U.S., and the European Confederation.
U.K. regulators are also investigating Microsoft’s (MSFT) agreement with Inflection AI as a potential merger. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly analysing the arrangement as well.
Amazon shares were up 1.3% at $164.94 in early trading Thursday, and have gained in excess of 8% since the start of the year.
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