OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (left) talks with Kevin Scott, Microsoft chief technology officer and executive vice president of artificial intelligence, at the Microsoft Build conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on May 21, 2024.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department to launch antitrust probe MicrosoftOpenAI and NvidiaA person familiar with the matter confirmed to CNBC that it studied the influence of powerful companies on the artificial intelligence industry.
Sources said that the FTC will take the lead in investigating Microsoft and OpenAI, while the DOJ will focus on investigating Nvidia, and the investigation will focus on the company’s behavior rather than mergers and acquisitions.
New York Times First, the investigation was reported.
As startups like OpenAI and Anthropic (the company behind the ChatGPT and Claude chatbots) gain momentum in the generative AI market, tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are also involved in an AI arms race of sorts. Integrating technology ensures they don’t fall behind in the market Expected to exceed US$1 trillion Income over ten years.
For example, Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI for the first time in 2019. Microsoft uses OpenAI’s models extensively in its Copilot chatbot and provides open source models on its Azure cloud.
The huge investment is necessary because artificial intelligence models are notoriously expensive to build and train, requiring thousands of specialized chips, which until now have mostly come from Nvidia. YuanThe company, which is developing its own model called Llama, said it spent billions of dollars on Nvidia’s graphics processing units, one of many companies that helped the chipmaker’s revenue grow more than 250% year over year.
Days later, a group of current and former OpenAI employees released a note about an impending antitrust investigation. open envelope On Tuesday, he described concerns about the rapid growth of the artificial intelligence industry despite a lack of oversight and whistleblower protections for those willing to speak out.
“AI companies have strong financial incentives to avoid effective oversight, and we believe customized corporate governance structures are insufficient to change this,” the staff wrote. They added that the companies “currently have only tenuous obligations to others to Share some information.” We believe that governments cannot be relied upon to share this information voluntarily. “
This follows the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) decision in January to launch a broad study of AI industry heavyweights, including Amazon, letterMicrosoft, Anthropic and OpenAI.
FTC Chairman Lina Khan announced the investigation in January at the agency’s Artificial Intelligence Technology Summit, describing it as “an examination of emerging investments and partnerships between artificial intelligence developers and major cloud service providers.” market research”.
By invoking its authority to conduct so-called 6(b) studies (named after Section 6(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act), regulators can investigate AI companies and file civil investigative requests independently of their law enforcement counterparts. . For example, the agency can order companies to submit specific reports and answer questions about their operations in writing.
“At the FTC, the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence is informing our work across the agency,” Khan said at the time. “The law as written does not provide an exemption for artificial intelligence, and we are paying close attention to the ways in which companies may use their power to hinder competition or deceive the public.”
Microsoft and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Nvidia declined to comment.
—CNBC’s Eamon Javers contributed to this report.
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