Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI now in competition regulator's sights

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Paramount is the requirement for "sustained" and open "competition" between AI developers to "deliver innovation, growth and responsible practices across the sector," it noted.

"The partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI (including a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment, collaboration in technology development and exclusive provision of cloud services by Microsoft to OpenAI) represents a close, multi-faceted relationship between two firms with significant activities in FMs and related markets," the CMA says on its website.

Microsoft invested upwards of $10 billion in OpenAI and has now integrated the ChatGPT LLMs across much of its sprawling software portfolio.

The only thing that has changed is that Microsoft will now have a non-voting observer on OpenAI’s Board, which is very different from an acquisition such as Google’s purchase of DeepMind in the UK.

Alex Haffner, competition partner at UK law biz Floodgate, said that in order to move forward with any investigation, “the CMA will need to find evidence that the recent fallout from the Sam Altman affair has led to material changes in the governance of Open AI and, more specifically, Microsoft’s influence over its affairs.”

“Nonetheless, even if it does not pursue matters further, by opening a preliminary investigation the CMA will be able to better understand the scope of the governance arrangements which underpin the OpenAI project and therefore better inform its broader oversight of the fast developing AI sector.” ®

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