Amazon’s $4bn investment into US artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is to be examined in the latest investigation into technology tie-ups by the UK’s competition watchdog.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Thursday that it was launching a preliminary investigation into the deal, before deciding whether to refer it for an in-depth review.
The deal, announced in March, included a $4bn (£3.16bn) investment in Anthropic from Amazon, and a commitment from Anthropic to use Amazon Web Services “as its primary cloud provider for mission critical workloads, including safety research and future foundation model development”.
The regulator said it was “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”.
An Anthropic spokesperson said: “We are an independent company. Our strategic partnerships and investor relationships do not diminish our corporate governance independence or our freedom to partner with others.
“Amazon does not have a seat on Anthropic’s board, nor does it have any board observer rights. We intend to cooperate with the CMA and provide them with a comprehensive understanding of Amazon’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”
An Amazon spokesperson said: “We’re disappointed that the UK’s CMA has not ended its probe yet. Amazon’s collaboration with Anthropic does not raise any competition concerns or meet the CMA’s own threshold for review.
“The early days of generative AI have largely seen one successful option available for customers. Anthropic has worked hard to become an emerging viable alternative. But, building models is expensive, and companies like Anthropic need access to a substantial amount of capital to train these models.”
Amazon said its investment would help increase competition in the emerging sector and that Anthropic was “free to work with any other provider (and indeed has multiple partners)”.
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Last week, the CMA announced an almost identical inquiry into Google’s partnership with Anthropic. It is also investigating Microsoft’s unusually structured tie-ups with AI lab Inflection and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
An investigation by the CMA into a deal between Microsoft and the French AI startup Mistral was dropped in May.