UK’s CMA Decides Amazon-Anthropic Partnership Won’t Lessen Competition in AI | PYMNTS.com

The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said Friday (Sept. 27) that it decided it will not further investigate whether Amazon’s partnership with Anthropic created a relevant merger situation that could result in a lessening of competition.

The decision followed the CMA’s invitation for comments on the partnership from any interest parties from April 24 to May 9 and its launch of a merger inquiry Aug. 8, the regulator said in a Friday update.

The CMA found that the partnership of Amazon and Anthropic did not meet the turnover test or the share of supply test that would make it a relevant merger situation, according to a “Summary of phase 1 decision” released Friday.

“In particular, the CMA found that Anthropic’s U.K. turnover does not exceed 70 million pounds in the U.K., nor do the parties, on the basis of the available evidence, together account for a 25% or more share of supply of any description of goods or services in the U.K.,” the summary said. “The CMA does not therefore believe that it is or may be the case that a relevant merger situation has been created.”

The CMA solicited opinions on the implications of the partnership between Amazon and Anthropic amid growing concerns about competition and innovation in the artificial intelligence sector, PYMNTS reported April 24.

The move followed Amazon’s March investment of $4 billion in Anthropic, which is an AI company known for its chatbot Claude. Amazon said it would keep a minority stake in Anthropic and not take a board position.

When announcing that the CMA was inviting opinions on the partnership, Joel Bamford, executive director of mergers at the CMA, said in a press release: “Foundation models have the potential to fundamentally impact the way we all live and work, including products and services across so many U.K. sectors — healthcare, energy, transport, finance and more. So open, fair and effective competition in foundation model markets is critical to making sure the full benefits of this transformation are realized by people and businesses in the U.K., as well as our wider economy where technology has a huge role to play in growth and productivity.”

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