A preliminary inquiry into Microsoft’s hire of a key employee of an AI firm was launched by British regulators on Tuesday due to worries that the move might stifle competition in the rapidly expanding artificial intelligence field.
Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI, was among the hirings that the Competition and Markets Authority claimed it discovered “sufficient information” to launch an investigation.
Earlier this year, Microsoft recruited Suleyman to lead its consumer artificial intelligence division and brought in several respected engineers and researchers.
Suleyman is regarded as a significant person in the AI community. Before founding Inflection, he co-founded the AI research centre DeepMind, which is currently owned by Google.
The watchdog said it was investigating whether the hirings amounted to a combination that violated the antitrust laws of the United Kingdom by causing “a substantial lessening of competition” in the AI industry.
Microsoft released a statement saying,
“We are confident that hiring talent promotes competition and should not be treated as a merger.”
Laptops 1000“We will give the UK Competition and Markets Authority the data it requires to quickly finish its investigations.”
The British watchdog has until September 11th to determine whether to approve or proceed with an in-depth inquiry into the matter. To resolve concerns about competition, the authority might enforce adjustments or reverse deals.
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are growing increasingly concerned about the way the largest tech firms are legally acquiring emerging AI startups’ goods and talent.
In a letter sent last week, three senators from the United States Senate urged the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s antitrust enforcement division to look into Amazon’s acquisition of San Francisco-based Adept.
As a result of the agreement, the CEO of Adept and other important staff members will join Amazon, granting the online retailer access to Adept’s AI systems and datasets.
The senators stated that the Microsoft-Inflection deal is “alarmingly similar to the one between Amazon and Adept, and it effectively eliminated a major competitor to OpenAI,” adding that the FTC is already investigating the matter.
