CMA Finished Amazon – Anthropic Probe

The UK watchdog cleared a $4 billion investment by Microsoft into AI start-up Anthropic. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded the move did not merit deeper investigation.

A phase one initial review, launched in August, ended up as the final result of the antitrust regulator gathering information and comments about Amazon’s investment. Amazon made two separate investments into Anthropic, giving it a minority stake in the generative AI company. The CMA found Anthropic’s UK revenue did not exceed £70 million, or account for a 25% share or more of the market. As a result, it does not believe that it is, or might be, that a relevant merger situation has been created, it stated.

An Amazon representative welcomed the decision acknowledging its lack of jurisdiction regarding this collaboration. “By investing in Anthropic, we’re helping to spur entry and competition in generative AI,” Amazon stated. Amazon still faces an informal inquiry by the US Federal Trade Commission into its hiring of senior executives from start-up Adept AI Labs.

The CMA is examining the impact of companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon making large investments in AI start-ups. However, so far it has not found the deals fall within merger rules in the UK or raise competition concerns. It cleared a partnership between Microsoft and Inflection AI and opted not to investigate its multi-year partnership with French start-up Mistral.