UK scrutinising Alphabet’s partnership with Anthropic

The CMA said it was now seeking views on whether the Alphabet-Anthropic partnership could reduce competition in the UK, and has set a deadline of August 13 for its invitation to comment

UK’s antitrust watchdog is scrutinising Google-parent Alphabet’s partnership with AI startup Anthropic and its impact on competition, the regulator said on Tuesday.

More than 18 months after Microsoft-backed OpenAI triggered an AI boom with the release of ChatGPT, antitrust regulators around the world have been increasingly concerned by multiple deals struck between smaller industry startups and big tech companies.

Agreements under scrutiny include Microsoft’s partnerships with startups like OpenAI, Inflection AI, and Mistral AI, as well as Alphabet’s ties to other smaller firms like Anthropic and Cohere.

Anthropic’s Claude AI models have vied for prominence with OpenAI’s GPT series.

Last week, UK’s CMA issued a joint statement alongside its counterparts in the US and the EU, promising to work together to safeguard fair competition in the AI industry.

Anthropic, which was co-founded by former OpenAI executives and siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, last year said it had secured $500 million in investment from Alphabet, promising another $1.5 billion over time. Anthropic also uses Alphabet’s Google Cloud services as part of its operations.

On Tuesday, the Competition and Markets Authority said it was now seeking views on whether the Alphabet-Anthropic partnership could reduce competition in the UK, and has set a deadline of August 13 for its invitation to comment.

A spokesperson for Anthropic said the firm would cooperate with the CMA and provide the “complete picture” about its partnership with Google. We are an independent firm and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others, the spokesperson said.

The Competition and Markets Authority will decide whether to launch an official investigation at the end of this process.

A Google spokesperson said: Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world. Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we do not demand exclusive tech rights.