The Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday it is launching an inquiry that will “scrutinize” investments made by Seattle-area tech giants Microsoft and Amazon in AI startups OpenAI and Anthropic.
The inquiry “will help the agency deepen enforcers understanding of the investments and partnerships formed between generative AI developers and cloud service providers,” the FTC said in a press release.
It’s the latest move by the FTC taking that aim at Big Tech and its power in the market as the AI race continues to gain steam.
“History shows that new technologies can create new markets and healthy competition. As companies race to develop and monetize AI, we must guard against tactics that foreclose this opportunity,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement. “Our study will shed light on whether investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair competition.”
Microsoft has poured more than $10 billion into OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT, while Amazon said in September it would invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, an OpenAI rival. Amazon’s investment included a commitment by Anthropic to make Amazon Web Services its main cloud provider.
The inquiry also includes Alphabet, an investor in Anthropic.
