Anthropic's UK revenue not enough to stop $4B Amazon union, says watchdog

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has decided to drop its investigation into Amazon's alliance with Anthropic, saying the significant deciding factor was a lack of local turnover for the AI toolmaker. The regulator issued a call for views on the matter in April amid concerns that Amazon's $4 billion total …

[cyberdemon]

AI "Toolmaker"

Now I understand where Keir Starmer came from..

[Jedit]

"Anthropic's UK turnover didn't exceed £70 million ($93 million)"

It may not be deemed to constitute a merger, but I would be asking some very serious questions as to why Amazon and Google have between them ploughed so many billions into a company that a year ago had global turnover of $100m and whose current turnover of $1bn appears to be mainly fuelled by that funding. That doesn't appear to be an investment they could ever recover.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it Amazon trying to put itself into a position so powerful that it can be the top team and own the stadium and act as umpire, like Google with advertising (or Amazon with book sales). Or is it just trying to grow the AI market, so it can sell more AWS time? From what I know of Amazon, I'd say it's both but the ship has sailed when it comes to controlling the Gen AI market. No player is going to be dominant now over Microsoft, Alphabet, Facebook, Tesla, etc. Also, no one new will be able to take those players on without getting bought out or priced out. I'd say the CMA has plenty of other work to be doing, including with Amazon in other markets.

[elsergiovolador]

Antics

The antics of CMA are amusing, though it's a shame that we pay for it.

Government could create Chocolate Teapot Authority and it would be more useful.

[Like a badger]

Re: Antics

"Government could create Chocolate Teapot Authority and it would be more useful."

I believe that's already been done, and is formally known as Ofcom.