The CMA, which is the U.K.'s competition and markets authority, has announced it is launching an in-depth investigation into Alphabet's investment in AI rival, Anthropic.

This comes three months after it confirmed that it was inviting "interested parties" to comment on Alphabet's various investments in Anthropic; those known thus far include one described as $300 million early last year and another said to be around $2 billion.

The probe underway today forms part of a multi-pronged probe set up to tackle what is being referred to as a "quasi-merger," wherein big tech firms are taking a new route to gaining control over innovative young start-ups by, among other things, hiring startup founders and technical talent and making strategic investments.

In addition to Alphabet's direct investment in the three-year-old San Francisco startup, Anthropic has been soliciting its interest from other big-name investors, including Amazon, which has invested $4 billion in the startup. The CMA has also been sniffing around that partnership, too, but last month concluded that it couldn't investigate the deal under the current merger rules because of its size and scope.

It's telling that the CMA has deemed Alphabet's investment in the same startup enough of a "relevant merger situation"; it apparently differs in the terms and conditions of Alphabet's investment into Anthropic, or Alphabet would affect competition in ways that the Amazon partnership wouldn't.

Alphabet subsidiary Google's spokesperson stated to TechCrunch, "Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don't demand exclusive tech rights."
The CMA said it has "insufficient information at this stage" about the collaboration and therefore announced it's launching a probe but would decide whether the case gets referred to an in-depth "phase 2" investigation by December 19, 2024.