The British antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), said today that it will conduct an antitrust assessment of the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI to investigate whether the cooperation between the two parties has resulted in "the acquisition of control," that is, one party has a substantial influence on the other. In addition, the CMA said it is also considering whether the cooperation between the two parties leads to a potential merger in the future.
The CMA said: “Recently, there have been a number of developments in the governance of OpenAI, some of which involve Microsoft.
In light of these developments, the CMA will assess whether Microsoft and OpenAI's partnership, including recent developments, leads to a relevant merger situation. If so, what are the potential impacts on competition. "
As we all know, Microsoft has committed more than $10 billion to OpenAI and owns 49% of the company.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on November 29 that Microsoft would serve as a non-voting observer on the OpenAI board of directors. This means that although Microsoft does not have voting rights, it can obtain some confidential information of OpenAI.