Google wants the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block Microsoft and OpenAI’s exclusive cloud deal. According to Google, the deal harms competition in the AI market.
This is reported by The Information. Specifically, it concerns the deal that Microsoft and OpenAI concluded in early 2023. Microsoft then invested ten billion dollars in OpenAI. As part of this deal, OpenAI hosted its technology on the American tech company’s cloud servers.
Google argues that the agreement stifles Microsoft’s innovation and creates an imbalance of power. By tying OpenAI’s AI models to its cloud services, Microsoft could limit other companies’ access to these crucial tools. An FTC decision to investigate or block the deal could set a precedent for future deals in the industry.
The question is whether this is a genuine concern about market forces or an attempt to stifle competition. Google has dominated the search market for years, but it is now facing stiff competition from AI platforms, of which OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the best-known.
At the same time, Google is investing heavily in its own AI tool, Gemini, and has pumped two billion dollars into Anthropic, a competitor of OpenAI. The attempt to destroy the deal is, therefore, somewhat reminiscent of Elon Musk, who, during the rapid rise of OpenAI, called for a moratorium on AI development.
This was because it would give time to build safety systems, but in practice, this also meant that OpenAI’s competitors had extra time to catch up with the market leader.