The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a formal investigation into Alphabet's investment in AI rival Anthropic.
The inquiry says the CMA is inviting “stakeholders” to comment on Alphabet's various investments in Anthropic, which were reported at $300 million early last year and a further $2 billion since then. This was carried out three months after the confirmation.
The investigation, which has now been launched, is part of a multifaceted investigation aimed at tackling so-called “quasi-mergers”. The merger is taking a new approach to gaining control of young, innovative startups, with big tech companies hiring startups. Not only do we make strategic investments, but we also improve our founders and technical talent.
Beyond Alphabet's own investment in Anthropic, the three-year-old San Francisco startup is also being courted by other big-name investors, including Amazon, which invested $4 billion in the startup. The CMA had also sniffed around the partnership, but concluded last month that it could not be investigated under current merger rules because of the size and scope of the deal.
The fact that the CMA has determined that Alphabet's investment in the same start-up falls within a “related merger situation” is telling. That suggests that the terms of Alphabet's investment in Anthropic are different from Amazon's, or that Alphabet's deal would stifle competition in a way that a partnership with Amazon would not.
In a statement to TechCrunch, a spokesperson for Alphabet subsidiary Google said, “Anthropic has and does use multiple cloud providers at its disposal. We are not seeking exclusive technology rights.” said.
Meanwhile, the CMA said it had “sufficient information” about the partnership to launch an investigation before deciding whether to refer the case to a more detailed “stage two” investigation. This decision is expected to be made by December 19, 2024.