The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have reached an agreement to proceed with antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI play in the artificial intelligence industry. This move is an indication of the escalating regulatory scrutiny of powerful technology companies.
The Justice Department will lead the investigation into whether Nvidia has violated antitrust laws, while the FTC will examine the conduct of OpenAI and Microsoft. The deal was struck over the past week and is expected to be completed in the coming days.
Microsoft has invested $13 billion in a for-profit subsidiary of OpenAI, acquiring a 49% stake. This partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI is also under informal scrutiny in other regions. The FTC is said to be looking into Microsoft’s $650 million deal with AI startup Inflection AI.
These moves signal growing regulatory scrutiny into the AI industry. In January, the FTC ordered OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Anthropic to provide information on recent investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies and cloud service providers.
The investigations come at a time when U.S. antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter has expressed concerns about “structures and trends in AI that should give us pause,” noting that the technology relies on massive amounts of data and computing power, which can give already-dominant firms a substantial advantage.
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