FTC wields the "big knife" of antitrust, this time "cutting" into the AI field

Zhitong App has learned that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States is closely monitoring the competitive landscape of artificial intelligence companies and plans to examine the investments in this technology by Microsoft, Alphabet (GOOG.US, GOOGL.US), and Amazon. FTC announced on Thursday that it has issued inquiries to five companies, requesting information on recent investments and cooperative relationships in the field of artificial intelligence. These companies include Microsoft and its partner OpenAI, Alphabet, and Amazon - both of which have invested in the artificial intelligence software company Anthropic, which is the fifth target on the FTC's list. FTC Chair Lina Khan stated in a statement, "History has shown that new technologies can create new markets and promote healthy competition. As companies compete to develop and monetize artificial intelligence, we must be vigilant against strategies that stifle this opportunity. Our research will reveal whether the investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies may distort innovation and undermine fair competition." FTC stated that it will "review the business partnerships and investments with artificial intelligence providers to better understand these relationships and their impact on the competitive landscape." These companies have 45 days to respond. According to reports, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI (developer of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence software). Amazon has announced an investment of up to $4 billion in Anthropic. Alphabet's Google division has disclosed plans to invest $2 billion in Anthropic, which has developed products such as the Claude chatbot. It is worth noting that these are almost not the only investments in leading artificial intelligence startups. NVIDIA (NVDA.US) and Oracle (ORCL.US) have investments in language model software company Cohere. HP (HPQ.US) holds shares in European language model company Aleph Alpha. Hugging Face, an artificial intelligence model marketplace, has received investments from numerous technology companies including Google, Amazon, IBM (IBM.US), Salesforce (CRM.US), AMD (AMD.US), Intel (INTC.US), and Qualcomm (QCOM.US). FTC's review of the investments and partnerships of these technology giants in the field of artificial intelligence aims to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of these relationships on the industry's competitive landscape, while ensuring that the development of new technologies is not limited by the monopolistic behavior of a few companies.