Britain's competition watchdog is considering partnerships between Microsoft and Amazon and smaller AI companies. The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is seeking public feedback on deals including Microsoft and French AI company Mistral and Amazon and US startup Anthropic, as well as Microsoft's hiring of employees from Inflection AI.
The aim is to ascertain whether these deals have the potential to reduce competition in the AI market, and the regulator has until May 9th to determine whether there is a conflict of interest before potentially launching a formal investigation. We are looking for comments from people.
“The invitation to comment (ITC), which is the first part of the CMA’s information gathering process, precedes the commencement of a formal Phase 1 review. An ITC does not initiate a formal Phase 1 review and does not necessarily It does not mean that the CMA has jurisdiction,” the CMA said.
Microsoft and Amazon invest in AI companies
Microsoft has invested 15 million euros ($16 million) in Mistral AI, a French company founded by Meta and former employees of Google's DeepMind AI lab.
The deal will make Mistral's large-scale language models, the technology behind AI chatbots, available on Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform. The tech giant will also pay Inflection AI $650 million to license its AI software and hire some staff. The group also includes Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Inflection AI and currently leading the Microsoft AI team.
Meanwhile, Amazon invested $4 billion in Anthropic, a US AI company that developed Claude's large language model and chatbot. Amazon said it would maintain a minority stake in Anthropic and not have a seat on the company's board of directors.
Opinions from Microsoft and Amazon
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company would cooperate with the UK investigation.
“We believe that common business practices such as hiring talent and splitting investments into AI startups promote competition and are not the same as mergers,” a Microsoft spokesperson said, according to CNBC. said it would provide the UK Competition and Markets Authority with the information it needed to quickly complete its investigation.
An Amazon spokesperson 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, gives Amazon no director or observer role, and Anthropic continues to have multiple “We run our models on cloud providers,” an Amazon spokesperson said. .
“By investing in Anthropic, which just released the industry-leading new Claude 3 model, we are helping to make the generative AI segment more competitive than it has been in years. “We are very excited about the opportunity that this presents. We are confident that the facts speak for themselves and hope that the CMA will agree to resolve this matter quickly.” added the person.
The aim is to ascertain whether these deals have the potential to reduce competition in the AI market, and the regulator has until May 9th to determine whether there is a conflict of interest before potentially launching a formal investigation. We are looking for comments from people.
“The invitation to comment (ITC), which is the first part of the CMA’s information gathering process, precedes the commencement of a formal Phase 1 review. An ITC does not initiate a formal Phase 1 review and does not necessarily It does not mean that the CMA has jurisdiction,” the CMA said.
Microsoft and Amazon invest in AI companies
Microsoft has invested 15 million euros ($16 million) in Mistral AI, a French company founded by Meta and former employees of Google's DeepMind AI lab.
The deal will make Mistral's large-scale language models, the technology behind AI chatbots, available on Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform. The tech giant will also pay Inflection AI $650 million to license its AI software and hire some staff. The group also includes Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Inflection AI and currently leading the Microsoft AI team.
Meanwhile, Amazon invested $4 billion in Anthropic, a US AI company that developed Claude's large language model and chatbot. Amazon said it would maintain a minority stake in Anthropic and not have a seat on the company's board of directors.
Opinions from Microsoft and Amazon
Expanding
“We believe that common business practices such as hiring talent and splitting investments into AI startups promote competition and are not the same as mergers,” a Microsoft spokesperson said, according to CNBC. said it would provide the UK Competition and Markets Authority with the information it needed to quickly complete its investigation.
An Amazon spokesperson 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, gives Amazon no director or observer role, and Anthropic continues to have multiple “We run our models on cloud providers,” an Amazon spokesperson said. .
“By investing in Anthropic, which just released the industry-leading new Claude 3 model, we are helping to make the generative AI segment more competitive than it has been in years. “We are very excited about the opportunity that this presents. We are confident that the facts speak for themselves and hope that the CMA will agree to resolve this matter quickly.” added the person.
