UK Clears Microsoft's OpenAI Partnership After Antitrust Investigation
The UK's CMA found Microsoft's influence over OpenAI has weakened, clearing their partnership of antitrust concerns.
Matilda
UK Clears Microsoft's OpenAI Partnership After Antitrust Investigation
Britain’s competition authority, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), said Wednesday that Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI doesn’t qualify for investigation under the merger provisions of the U.K.’s Enterprise Act 2002, the country’s anticompetitive practices law. Image Credits:Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images “Overall, taking into account all of the available evidence […] the CMA does not believe that Microsoft currently controls OpenAI’s commercial policy, and instead exerts a high level of material influence over that policy,” the CMA wrote in its decision. “In other words there is no change of control giving rise to a relevant merger situation.” The CMA began investigating Microsoft’s partnership in December 2023. The tech giant is a top investor in OpenAI, having poured nearly $14 billion into the AI startup since 2019. Microsoft also packages many of OpenAI’s technologies in a managed offering called the Azure OpenAI Service, and it works closely with …
