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Under the deal, the U.S. Department of Justice will take the
lead in investigating whether Nvidia violated antitrust laws,
while the FTC will examine the conduct of OpenAI and Microsoft,
the report said. While OpenAI's parent is a nonprofit, Microsoft
has invested $13 billion in a for-profit subsidiary, for what
would be a 49% stake.
The Microsoft-OpenAI partnership is also under informal scrutiny
in other regions.
The regulators struck the deal over the past week and it is
expected to be completed in the coming days, the report said,
citing two people with knowledge of the matter.
The FTC is said to be looking into Microsoft's $650 million deal
with AI startup Inflection AI, the Wall Street Journal reported
on Thursday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
The moves signal growing regulatory scrutiny into the AI
industry. In January, the FTC ordered OpenAI, Microsoft,
Alphabet Amazon and Anthropic to provide information on recent
investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies
and cloud service providers.
In July last year, the FTC opened an investigation into OpenAI
on claims it had run afoul of consumer protection laws by
putting personal reputations and data at risk.
Last week, U.S. antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter referred to
"structures and trends in AI that should give us pause," at an
AI conference, adding that the technology relies on massive
amounts of data and computing power, which can give
already-dominant firms a substantial advantage.
Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, the Justice Department and FTC did
not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular
business hours.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank
Dhaniwala)
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