The UK competition watchdog said on Wednesday it was seeking comment on the AI partnerships between Microsoft and Mistral AI, and Amazon and Anthropic.
The Competition and Markets Authority also said it would like to hear third-party opinions about Microsoft's employment of former Inflection AI employees and related arrangements.
Last month, Microsoft named DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman to lead its newly created consumer AI division and hired several employees for his Inflection AI startup.
The regulator said it had not concluded whether the deal fell within the scope of UK merger rules or raised competition concerns.
Microsoft said it believes that “common business practices such as hiring talent and splitting investments in AI startups promote competition and are not the same as mergers.”
A spokesperson said: “We will provide the UK Competition and Markets Authority with the information it needs to complete its investigation quickly.”
Amazon said it was “unprecedented for the CMA to review this type of partnership.”
“Unlike partnerships between other AI startups and large technology companies, the partnership with Anthropic includes a limited investment, does not give Amazon a director or observer role, and Anthropic remains “We run our model on multiple cloud providers,” the spokesperson said. .
The CMA is already considering a partnership between Microsoft and Open AI and asked for views in December.
“The CMA is also considering feedback received earlier this year regarding the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI and is currently awaiting information requested from both companies,” it said on Wednesday.
The move to investigate the Microsoft-Mistral AI and Amazon-Anthropic partnerships comes as a recent report on AI Foundation Models identified an “interconnected web” of more than 90 partnerships and strategic investments involving the same companies. The company said the move was made in response to the request.
In January, the Federal Trade Commission ordered OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Anthropic to provide information about recent investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies and cloud service providers.
The CMA is calling for comments by May 9. This forms the first part of the information gathering process and takes place before a formal investigation begins.
