Google’s partnership with AI company Anthropic is facing an investigation by the UK regulator

Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic is facing a formal competition investigation in the UK.

Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority said it had “sufficient information” to launch an initial investigation.

It was looking for input Earlier this year about whether the deal would hinder competition.

The competition watchdog has until December 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its investigation.

“Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” the company said.

“Anthropic is free to, and does, use multiple cloud providers, and we are not demanding exclusive technology rights.”

AI startup Anthropic focused on security

San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

The company has focused on increasing the security and reliability of AI models. Last year, Google reportedly agreed to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, which has a popular chatbot called Claude.

Anthropic said it was working with the regulator and would provide “a complete picture of Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships compromise the independence of our management or our freedom to work with others,” it said in a statement.

The UK regulator has scrutinized several AI deals as investment money flows into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom.

Last month, the company approved Anthropic’s $4 billion (€3.6 billion) deal with Amazon and also signed Microsoft’s deals with two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.