Google parent Alphabet’s partnership with AI firm Anthropic under investigation in the UK

Britain’s competition regulator on Tuesday said it is investigating to see if Google parent Alphabet’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic has resulted in reduced competition.

The Competition and Markets Authority said that it is looking into whether a partnership between the two firms has led to a “relevant merger situation,” and if that “may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition” in the U.K.

The regulator has invited comments from interested parties before beginning a formal investigation.

An Anthropic spokesperson told CNBC that the company will cooperate with the CMA and “provide them with the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” the spokesperson added.

The Anthropic spokesperson added that, unlike OpenAI, which previously gave Microsoft an observer seat on its board, neither Google nor Amazon has a seat or any observation rights over Anthropic’s board. Microsoft recently dropped its seat as an observer on the board of the company.

Anthropic added that its models are available non-exclusively on Google’s Vertex AI platform, as well as Amazon’s Bedrock, alongside models from other AI labs.

Google also pushed back on competition concerns over its deal with Anthropic.

A spokesperson for the company told CNBC that it’s “committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” and added that Anthropic is “free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”

Google agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic back in October, in a move that involved a $500 million upfront cash injection and an additional $1.5 billion to be poured in over time. This was on top of prior investments Google had made in the company, which has reportedly given it around a 10% stake in the AI startup.

Anthropic is the developer of Claude, a rival chatbot to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.