US probes Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia for AI dominance
For representative use.
The US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission will investigate the industry dominance of Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia in the Artificial Intelligence industry, according to The New York Times.
The US Department of Justice will lead the investigation to see if Nvidia violated antitrust laws, while the Federal Trade Commission will inspect the conduct of OpenAI and Microsoft, the NYT report said.
Although OpenAI's parent is a nonprofit, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in a for-profit subsidiary, for what would be a 49% stake. The Microsoft-OpenAI partnership is also under informal inquiry in other regions.
The agreement, reached last week by regulators according to sources and is expected to be finalised soon.
The FTC will look into Microsoft's $650 million deal with AI startup Inflection AI, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday (June 6), citing a source familiar with the matter.
Notably, in January, the FTC ordered OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Anthropic to provide information on latest investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies and cloud service providers.
The FTC launched a probe into OpenAI last July over concerns that its practices violated consumer protection laws and potentially compromised personal data.
US antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter said at an AI conference that structure and trends in AI should give us pause, the technology's reliance on vast amounts of data and computing power creates a significant barrier to entry.
(With inputs from agencies)