The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a formal investigation into the relationship between Amazon and the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, following the $4 billion investment made by the tech giant in the company. The CMA has stated that it has “sufficient information” to explore whether this partnership could amount to a “quasi-merger,” a strategy where big tech companies invest in startups or hire their staff to gain a monopoly, which could negatively impact competition in the UK.
The investigation, which will be conducted in two phases, aims to determine whether Amazon’s involvement in Anthropic has resulted in or could lead to a “substantial lessening of competition in any markets in the UK for goods or services.” The first phase of this investigation will run until October 4, the deadline to decide whether to proceed to a more detailed second phase.
The CMA had notified in April of this year its interest in the deal between Amazon and Anthropic, inviting all interested parties to submit their comments. Thursday’s official notification marked the formal start of the investigation.
Amazon, on its part, has expressed disappointment at the CMA’s decision, arguing that its collaboration with Anthropic “does not meet the threshold for review” set by the authority. The US company had announced in September 2023 that it would acquire a minority stake in Anthropic and support its development using Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platforms. Additionally, Amazon highlighted that Anthropic would utilize AWS’s Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train, and deploy its future artificial intelligence models.
Anthropic, which describes itself as an independent company, is known for its generative artificial intelligence foundational model called Claude, capable of engaging in sophisticated dialogues, generating creative content, as well as performing complex reasoning and providing detailed instructions. The partnership between Amazon and Anthropic combines this AI model with AWS’s cloud technology.
The CMA has also been investigating Amazon and Microsoft in relation to their cloud computing businesses in the UK. In October 2023, the British authority launched a two-year investigation into these companies, which collectively dominate between 70% and 80% of the UK cloud services market. Furthermore, in November 2023, the CMA announced that it had approved commitments from Amazon and Meta to address unfair practices related to their marketplace platforms.