Software giant Microsoft is currently under the radar for its multibillion-dollar investments in OpenAI.
The news comes after the EU started its crackdown against big tech giants in the form of a competition probe. This would be related to both the virtual world and the domain of generative AI, the commission confirmed recently.
Therefore, all contracts signed between big tech firms and AI makers are currently going to be probed through a detailed investigation carried out by the commission, it added.
Since day one, Microsoft’s keen interest in OpenAI has already raised the alarm in terms of competition in the market that could keep these companies in the lead when it came down to AI.
At the moment, the EU’s executive arm claims to be busy analyzing the market trends for both VR and generative AI. And as a part of the tests being conducted, seeing Microsoft at the top of the list did make sense.
More insights would be gathered in terms of how much new laws about competition could assist such fields after loopholes in the entire system are looked at in detail.
The EC added that it would be keen to know if the agreement between both leading tech firms is in fact renewable but Microsoft has yet to shed light on the matter and refused to return any kind of requests for comments too. Particular emphasis was placed on the Merger Regulation by the EU.
The EC generated requests for data to a long list of players in the industry and is now seeking views from enlisted parties who have until the middle of March this year to generate responses.
As confirmed by the head of the EC, the world of generative AI keeps on growing as we speak, and seeing the power of virtual worlds erupt all of a sudden is serious news. It’s quite interesting to see how markets are staying competitive while it is quintessential to ensure competition continues to flourish for an equal balance of all stakeholders involved.
In case you did not know, it’s a serious deal for Microsoft who has literally forked out billions to try and ensure a lot of components from OpenAI’s digital realm coexist in its workplace. This entails rollouts linked to Bing, its Windows, and also Microsoft Office. Meanwhile, it gives OpenAI a whole list of innovative Azure tools from its cloud computing era.
We saw the company first publicly announce investments in OpenAI as early as 2019 and with time, that increased with more contributions done through cash.
The firm made major headlines last year when it invested another staggering $10 billion into the AI giant, making the total investment somewhere close to $13 billion.
The reports linked to the EU review arose after the Competition and Markets Authority from the UK made it very clear how it needed to keep tabs on the massive investments made by Microsoft and then other reports added how the FTC was also keen on probing the same matter.
In the probe, factors such as whether or not Microsoft’s share in OpenAI was close to giving rise to a merger were determined as a new series of developments started to arise for OpenAI governance. And the majority entailed Microsoft as the leading cause of concern.
During the year’s start, OpenAI did go through some turmoil of its own when shocking reports highlighted the removal of its own CEO by the board. It wouldn’t be wrong to claim that it was so dramatic to learn about such findings and then after seeing the response from the world, it was clear that the decision was not correct. The whole board was again given a shuffling after Altman was reinstated.
This is when we saw how Microsoft was given the power of sitting silently on the board as an observer and that had people talking about how this was proof of just how much control the software giant had on the overall firm. But it was not allowed to take part in any kind of decision-making as it was tagged with a nonvoting status.
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