LONDON (AP) 鈥 Britain's competition watchdog said Tuesday it's looking into Google's partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, adding fresh regulatory scrutiny to investment money flooding into the AI industry.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it's seeking comments as it considers whether the deal between the two companies has resulted in a 鈥渟ubstantial lessening of competition鈥 in the United Kingdom for AI services. The watchdog said it will accept feedback from 鈥渁ny interested party鈥 until Aug. 13 before deciding whether to open a formal investigation.
San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company focused heavily on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. Google reportedly agreed last year to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic.
The U.K. regulator has Amazon for investing in Anthropic. It has also been probing Microsoft's multibillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft鈥檚 hiring of startup key staff over concerns it could thwart competition.
鈥淲e intend to cooperate with the CMA and provide them with the complete picture about Google鈥檚 investment and our commercial collaboration," Anthropic said in a statement. 鈥淲e are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others.鈥
Google said it 鈥渋s committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world."
The company said Anthropic, which is using Google's cloud computing services, 鈥渋s free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don鈥檛 demand exclusive tech rights."
