The extensive investment layout of global technology giants in the field of artificial intelligence has raised regulatory competition concerns.
On the official website of April 11, it was reported that the latest report of the Competition and Market Administration (CMA) of the United Kingdom revealed an AI investment "Internet" consisting of more than 90 partners, involving companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Nvidia.
It is understood that Microsoft is an important supporter of OpenAI, investing in French artificial intelligence startup Mistral and recently acquiring the Inflection AI team. Google and Amazon have invested in Aerospace, which is a competitor to Google's own artificial intelligence laboratory DeepMind, while Nvidia has supported numerous startups, including Cohere.
CMA recognizes that these large companies will bring enormous resources, expertise, and innovation capabilities, and that they may play a significant role in the artificial intelligence foundational model market. This partnership and arrangement will also play a role in promoting competition in the technology ecosystem.
At the same time, CMA is concerned that this network may allow technology giants to leverage their own advantages to dominate the entire market, such as controlling key technologies to restrict market entry, abusing market position to distort competition, and consolidating existing market forces through the industrial chain.
"Maintaining market diversity and preventing the risk of excessive reliance on a few large companies are also crucial, especially considering the potential wide applications of artificial intelligence foundational models in all economic sectors such as finance, healthcare, education, defense, transportation, and retail," CMA wrote in the announcement.
It is worth mentioning that at the end of last year, CMA announced that it was studying whether the collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI would affect the entire artificial intelligence market.
In her recent public speech, CMA CEO Sarah Cardell described the prospects for the transformation of artificial intelligence foundational models as a potential "paradigm shift" in society and the economy.
At the same time, she emphasized the growing presence of a few existing technology companies in the artificial intelligence basic model market, which have already occupied market positions in many of today's most important digital markets. This series of rapid market developments has raised significant concerns about competition.
"When we started this work, we were very curious. Now, with a deeper understanding and close monitoring of the situation, we have real concerns," she said. "The main challenge we face is how to leverage this exciting technology to benefit everyone, while preventing potential market forces from being exploited and unintended consequences."
Looking back at CMA's experience in the digital market over the past decade, "winner take all" has led to the rise of a few powerful platforms. Sarah Cardell stated that CMA is determined to "learn from historical lessons" at this critical moment of the emergence of potentially transformative new technologies.
A Microsoft spokesperson said, "We welcome the clarity and transparency provided by the report and look forward to constructive cooperation with the UK Competition and Market Authority to apply its principles to our business." Nvidia declined to comment. Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta did not respond to requests for comment.