The UK’s antitrust regulator will formally investigate Alphabet’s $2.3 billion Anthropic investment

Date:

Share:


The UK’s competition regulator is probing Alphabet’s investment in AI startup Anthropic. After opening public comments this summer, the Competition and Market Authority (CMA) said on Thursday it has “sufficient information” to begin an initial investigation into whether Alphabet’s reported $2.3 billion investment in the Claude AI chatbot maker harms competition in UK markets.

The CMA breaks its merger probes into two stages: a preliminary scan to determine whether there’s enough evidence to dig deeper and an optional second phase where the government gathers as much evidence as possible. After the second stage, it ultimately decides on a regulatory outcome.

The probe will formally kick off on Friday. By December 19, the CMA will choose whether to move to a phase 2 investigation.

Tech Reader reached out to Google and the CMA. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

TechCrunch notes that Alphabet reportedly invested $300 million in Anthropic in early 2023. Later that year, it was said to back the AI startup with an additional $2 billion. Situations like this can be classified as a “quasi-merger,” where deep-pocketed tech companies essentially take control of emerging startups through strategic investments and hiring founders and technical workers.

Amazon has invested even more in Anthropic: a whopping $4 billion. After an initial public comment period, the CMA declined to investigate that investment last month. The CMA said Amazon avoided Alphabet’s fate at least in part because of its current rules: Anthropic’s UK turnover didn’t exceed £70 million, and the two parties didn’t combine to account for 25 percent or more of the region’s supply (in this case, AI LLMs and chatbots).

Although the CMA hasn’t specified, something in Alphabet’s $2.3 billion Anthropic investment constituted a deeper dive. Of course, Google’s Gemini competes with Claude, and both companies make large language models they provide to small businesses and enterprise customers.



Source link

━ more like this

Under Trump, AI Scientists Are Told to Remove ‘Ideological Bias’ From Powerful Models

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued new instructions to scientists that partner with the US Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute...

This 43-inch Amazon Fire TV just dropped to it’s lowest price ever

For the last few years, Amazon’s low-cost 4K LEDs have offered buyers a cost-effective means of achieving good picture quality and a ton...

Update Your iPhone Now to Fix Safari Security Flaw

Apple has released iOS 18.3.2, an operating system update that fixes a vulnerability in WebKit, the browser engine used by Safari to render...

Use this code to get $50 off this 27-inch 2K gaming monitor

Showcased at CES 2025 earlier this year, the 27-inch Mobile Pixels Mini-LED 2K QHD gaming monitor has a $50 discount at StackSocial. You...

Epson SureColor P900 review: a photographer’s printer with poster-size prints

Epson SureColor P900 MSRP $1,349.00 “Epson's SureColor P900 is a professional tool meant for photographers that want on-demand, large fine art prints with lab-quality results.” Pros Exceptional photo...
spot_img