LONDON — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday it will launch a formal investigation into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it had “sufficient information” to launch an initial investigation after seeking views on whether the deal would harm competition earlier this year.
The CMA has until December 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or widen its investigation.
“Google is committed to building the world’s most open and innovative AI ecosystem. Anthropic has access to, and does use, multiple cloud providers at its disposal. We do not seek exclusive technology rights. It’s not a thing,” he said.
San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by brothers Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company focused on making its AI models safer and more reliable. Google reportedly agreed to invest billions of dollars in Anthropic last year.
UK regulators are scrutinizing a number of AI deals as investment capital flows into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. Last month, it signed a $4 billion deal with Anthropic and Amazon, as well as deals with Microsoft and two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.
