The UK’s competition watchdog is set to investigate Alphabet’s (Google’s parent company) partnership with Anthropic, the AI startup, and its potential fallout on competition in the emerging AI market.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently announced a similar investigation into the relationship between Microsoft and prolific AI company OpenAI, and how this partnership may mitigate fair competition as the AI market expands.

It also follows the joint statement signed by the CMA along its EU and US counterparts, intending to collaborate on fair competition safeguarding efforts in the AI sector.

AI company Anthropic, which created ChatGPT competitor Claude, was founded by ex-OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei. Last year, Alphabet invested $500m in the company, with promises of a further $1.5bn over time. While Anthropic uses Google Cloud services, its AI chatbot Claude is a direct competitor of Google’s Gemini chatbot.

The CMA has since launched phase one of its inquiry into the potential anti-comepetitive nature of the partnership, seeking views from relevant parties on how this deal could impact the fairness of the AI market.

Similar investigations have also occurred for smaller company partnerships, including between Inflection AI and Mistral AI.

Concerned parties will have until 13 August to comment on the partnership between Anthropic and Alphabet.

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“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” a spokesperson for Anthropic said, as reported by Reuters.

Additionally, a Google spokesperson said “Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world. Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”

Following the initial comments, the UK’s antitrust regulator will then decide if a formal investigation is required.