UK clears Google parent and Anthropic partnership

Britain's competition regulator on Tuesday cleared Google-parent Alphabet's investment in Anthropic, an American developer of artificial intelligence, following a probe.

The Competition and Markets Authority concluded that the big tech giant had not acquired "material influence" over Anthropic as a result of the deal, which was reported to have cost $2 billion.

Anthropic's UK turnover did not exceed £70 million ($89 million), one of the CMA's conditions for a full investigation.


The British regulator is one of several global regulators concerned with reining in big tech companies and their partnerships with AI firms.

In September, the CMA cleared Amazon's investment of up $4 billion in Anthropic, saying that it did not believe that "a relevant merger situation has been created".

It also cleared the way for a tie-up between US giant Microsoft and French artificial intelligence firm Mistral AI, concluding it did not amount to a merger.