|
The
comments by Microsoft were in response to a consultation
launched by the European Commission in January on the level of
competition in generative AI.
The growing popularity of generative AI, which can generate
human-like responses to written prompts and is exemplified by
Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's chatbot Gemini,
has triggered concerns about misinformation and fake news.
"Today, only one company - Google - is vertically integrated in
a manner that provides it with strength and independence at
every AI layer from chips to a thriving mobile app store.
Everyone else must rely on partnerships to innovate and
compete," Microsoft said in its report to the Commission.
It said Google's self-supply AI semiconductors will give it a
competitive advantage for the years to come, while its large
sets of proprietary data from Google Search Index and YouTube
enable it to train its large language model Gemini.
"YouTube provides an unparalleled set of video content; it hosts
an estimated 14 billion videos. Google has access to such
content; but other AI developers do not," Microsoft said.
It said AI-powered voice assistants such as Google's Google
Assistant and Apple's Siri give both companies an advantage.
"They are well positioned to evolve and leverage their
respective existing voice assistants into leadership positions
in generative AI. New entrants and competitors of Google and
Apple will not enjoy the same advantages," Microsoft said.
Microsoft, whose more than $10 billion investment in OpenAI is
now in EU antitrust regulators' crosshairs, also sought to fend
off regulatory worries about such partnerships between Big Tech
and start-ups.
"All of these start-ups relied on different forms of investments
and partnerships that enabled them to enter and expand in the
space," it said.
It pointed to Anthropic which has Google and Amazon as
investors, France's Mistral in which Microsoft has invested 15
million euros and Canada's Cohere which has Salesforce and
Nvidia as investors.
"Encouraging pro-competitive partnerships in the AI space is an
effective way to prevent companies from becoming vertically
integrated in a manner that would result in an anticompetitive
advantage," Microsoft said.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Susan Fenton)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
