The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it will not investigate Amazon's $4 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic further.
In September 2023, Amazon invested $1.25 billion in Anthropic. By March this year, Amazon increased its investment by an additional $2.75 billion, making the total investment $4 billion. This is Amazon's largest investment in a single company in nearly 30 years.
In August, the CMA began investigating the partnership to assess whether it would significantly reduce competition in the UK market, particularly in the AI sector. Today, the CMA concluded that the partnership does not meet the criteria for a merger investigation under the Enterprise Act 2002.
The CMA's report found that Anthropic’s revenue in the UK is less than £70 million (approximately $93 million). Moreover, the evidence indicates that neither company controls 25% or more of any specific UK market for goods or services.
Anthropic has emerged as a key player in AI development. Amazon's collaboration with Anthropic is part of a broader strategy to strengthen its position in AI and cloud computing. Reports from late August suggested that Amazon’s revamped Alexa, powered by Anthropic’s AI model Claude, will launch in October.
Earlier this month, the CMA also approved Microsoft’s investment in Inflection AI, stating that it does not require deeper antitrust scrutiny.
In March, Microsoft agreed to pay $650 million to Inflection AI for software licensing. Additionally, Microsoft announced the hiring of Inflection AI's co-founders Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan, along with most of the company’s employees. Industry experts viewed Microsoft's actions as an indirect acquisition of Inflection AI, but the CMA found Inflection AI’s market share in the UK to be insignificant.
