The UK approves Google’s $2 billion investment in Anthropic

The UK’s competition regulator has cleared Google’s $2 billion investment in Anthropic, and others. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially concluded that the company hasn’t acquired “material influence” over the AI startup Anthropic as a result of the investment.

The continuing investigation into the partnership has also been squashed, with the UK antitrust watchdog saying that the investment doesn’t qualify for a full probe under merger rules. This is after phase one of a .

“Anthropic is an independent company and our strategic partnerships and investor relationships do not diminish our corporate governance independence or our freedom to partner with others,” a company spokesperson said after the CMA announced its findings.

Google’s investment into Anthropic gives the company non-voting shares and consultation rights on significant business issues. Anthropic is best known for , which is in direct competition with . Earlier this year, the CMA the “interconnected web” of partnerships and investments in the rapidly advancing world of AI.

The CMA also allowed a similar investment to go through in which . It didn’t , on the grounds that Anthropic’s UK turnover didn’t exceed £70 million and the two parties didn’t combine to account for 25 percent or more of the region’s supply of AI LLMs and chatbots.

Microsoft’s investment into OpenAI, however, . The watchdog group did clear Microsoft’s investments and .