The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday it had issued orders to OpenAI, Microsoft (MSFT.O), Alphabet (GOOGL.O), Amazon (AMZN.O) and Anthropic, requiring them to provide information on recent investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies and cloud service providers.
The orders are part of an inquiry that "will scrutinize corporate partnerships and investments with AI providers to build a better internal understanding of these relationships and their impact on the competitive landscape," the FTC said in a statement.
The agency said the companies will have 45 days from the date they receive the order to respond.
The FTC's concerns about generative AI are not new. Last June, the commission's staff published a blog post laying out their concerns about potential anticompetitive practices in the growing industry, adding they would use the "full range of tools to identify and address unfair methods of competition." Data, talent and computational resources were three areas where competition is especially important.
Corporate Investors such as Microsoft and Amazon have become dominant forces in AI funding, as they account for 90% of generative AI private fundraising in 2023, up from about 40% on average in the years prior, according to an analyst note from Morgan Stanley.
Earlier this month, Politico reported the U.S. Justice Department and FTC were in discussions over which agency can probe ChatGPT maker OpenAI on antitrust grounds, including the AI firm's partnership with Microsoft.
Microsoft's tie-up with OpenAI has raised antitrust scrutiny after the U.S. software giant committed to invest over $10 billion into OpenAI last year.
OpenAI and Anthropic, known as foundational models companies, develop large AI models trained on large quantities of data.
To fund the expensive ambitions, Anthropic has raised $4 billion from Amazon and over $2 billion from Alphabet. The outsized funding by the two AI companies accounted for over 10% of total U.S. venture funding in startups last year, PitchBook data showed.
The large amount of funding by the big tech, sometimes in the form of cloud credits instead of cash, has raised eyebrows from the venture and startup community.
