Amazon’s $4 billion partnership with AI startup Anthropic received competition clearance from the UK

LONDON – Britain’s competition watchdog said on Friday it had cleared Amazon’s partnership with artificial intelligence company Anthropic because the $4 billion deal did not stand up to further scrutiny.

The Competition and Markets Authority approval comes after it began reviewing the deal, which is part of a wider global review of a wave of investment by Big Tech companies into leading startups working on productive AI technology.

The watchdog found that San Francisco-based Anthropic’s revenue and combined market share with Amazon in Britain were not large enough to warrant in-depth scrutiny under the country’s merger rules.

“We welcome the decision of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, which recognizes the lack of authority for this collaboration,” Amazon said in a statement. “By investing in Anthropic, we are helping to stimulate entry and competition in generative AI.”

Under the deal, Anthropic uses Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider and Amazon’s custom chips to build, train and deploy AI models.

The British regulator had previously allowed Microsoft to hire key staff from another startup, Inflection AI, alongside its partnership with French startup Mistral AI.

The Observer is still examining the partnership between Anthropic and Google. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by sisters Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused mainly on improving the security and reliability of its AI models.

AI deals are also facing scrutiny across the Atlantic; where the Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether they are helping tech giants gain an unfair advantage in the emerging market for artificial intelligence services.