The US Federal Trade Commission upped the ante in January of this year, issuing orders to five companies, including Microsoft and OpenAI, requiring them to provide information about their recent investments in generative AI companies and major cloud service providers. Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, and Anthropic, developer of the generative AI tool Claude, were also under the microscope.
Nvidia did not escape notice either. It said in its latest quarterly report, “Our position in markets relating to AI has led to increased interest in our business from regulators worldwide.” It cited requests for information about its business activities around AI from regulators in the EU, the UK, and China, specifically highlighting the French Competition Authority’s “collection of information”, and noted, “We expect to receive additional requests for information in the future.”
In a February 2024 interview in Harvard Law Today, FTC chair Lisa Khan said that that the reason for investigations such as these is not to stifle business growth, but to curtail illegal behavior. “We really want to make sure that the opportunity for competition and the potential for disruption is preserved, rather than this moment being co-opted by some of the existing dominant firms to double down on their dominance,” she said.