UK Regulators Are Looking Into Amazon and Microsoft AI Partnerships—Here’s Why

U.K. regulators said Wednesday they are looking into the potential impacts of deals made by Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) related to artificial intelligence (AI) amid concerns they could hurt competition in the AI market. 

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) asked for input from third parties about partnerships involving Amazon and Anthropic, and Microsoft and France’s Mistral AI, as well Microsoft’s hiring of former employees and related arrangements with Inflection AI. 

The CMA said that it seeks to determine if those moves fall within U.K. merger rules “and the impact that these arrangements could have on competition” in the U.K.

Amazon has invested billions in Anthropic, giving Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers access to Anthropic generative AI products. The agreement between Microsoft and Mistral AI puts Mistral’s large language models (LLM) on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.  

The CMA said it will receive comments until May 9 to determine if these partnerships and other arrangements “result in the creation of relevant merger situations,” and if so, whether they might be in violation of antitrust regulations.

Amazon called it “unprecedented for the CMA to review a collaboration of this type,” and said that that “unlike partnerships between other AI startups and large technology companies, our collaboration with Anthropic includes a limited investment, doesn’t give Amazon a board director or observer role, and continues to have Anthropic running its models on multiple cloud providers.”

Amazon argued that by investing in Anthropic, “we’re helping make the generative AI segment more competitive than it’s been the last couple years,” adding, “we’re confident that the facts speak for themselves, and hope the CMA agrees to resolve this quickly.”

Microsoft said it would cooperate with providing the CMA the information it needs to complete its inquiries, and that “we remain confident that common business practices such as the hiring of talent or making a fractional investment in an AI start-up promote competition and are not the same as a merger.”

Shares of Amazon declined 1.6% to $176.59 Wednesday, while Microsoft shares rose 0.4% to $409.06.