According to The New York Times, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have reached an agreement to conduct antitrust investigations into the dominance of Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia in the artificial intelligence industry.
According to the agreement, the Department of Justice will lead the investigation into whether Nvidia has violated antitrust laws, while the Federal Trade Commission will examine the actions of OpenAI and Microsoft. Although OpenAI's parent company is a non-profit organization, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in its for-profit subsidiary, holding 49% of the shares.
Additionally, Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI is also under informal scrutiny in other regions.
The agreement was reportedly reached by regulators over the past week and is expected to be completed in the coming days.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter, that the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing Microsoft's $650 million deal with AI startup Inflection AI.
These actions indicate that regulatory scrutiny of the AI industry is intensifying. In January this year, the Federal Trade Commission requested that OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Anthropic provide information on recent investments and collaborations in generative AI companies and cloud service providers.
In July last year, the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into OpenAI, accusing it of violating consumer protection laws and potentially endangering personal reputations and data.
Last week, U.S. antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter mentioned at an AI conference that "the structure and trends of AI should alert us," adding that the technology relies on massive amounts of data and computing power, which could give already dominant companies a significant advantage.
Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours.
