LONDON (AP) — The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced Wednesday that it has closed its review of Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI. The watchdog stated it is satisfied that the deal doesn’t warrant a more in-depth examination under the country’s merger regulations.
The CMA, after considering “available evidence,” concluded that the partnership between the U.S. tech corporation and the creator of ChatGPT doesn’t meet the criteria for a merger investigation. The regulatory body’s statement specified, “In particular the CMA does not consider there has been a change of control by Microsoft from material influence to de facto control over OpenAI.”
Initially, Microsoft was a major backer of OpenAI, investing billions of dollars into the San Francisco-based startup early on. However, OpenAI has since attracted other substantial investors, including Japan’s Softbank and chipmaker Nvidia, following the success of its ChatGPT product.
The CMA has increased its scrutiny of AI-related agreements amid growing investments by major tech companies in startups focused on generative artificial intelligence. Last year, the CMA approved another Microsoft deal involving Inflection AI, as well as partnerships between Google and Amazon with chatbot developer Anthropic.
