The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it is launching an antitrust investigation centered on Amazon’s Anthropic investment.

Anthropic is one of the leading AI firms, and one of OpenAI’s main competitors. Amazon has been a major Anthropic investor, completing a $4 billion investment in the company in March 2024.

The wording of the CMA’s complaint, and the section of the Enterprise Act 2002 that it references, make clear that the agency is investigating whether Amazon’s investment in the AI firm represents a merger—even if that’s not what the companies are calling it.

In a statement to Engadget, an Anthropic spokesperson made clear that the investment does not represent a merger between the two companies, and that the AI firm remains independent.

“We are an independent company,” the spokesperson said. “Amazon does not have a seat on Anthropic’s board, nor does it have any board observer rights. We intend to cooperate with the CMA and provide them with a comprehensive understanding of Amazon’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

From the outside looking in, it seems unlikely that the CMA will be able to prove that Amazon’s investment represents a merger with Anthropic. In addition to the points made in the above statement, Amazon is hardly the only investor in the startup. In fact, it’s not even the only company that has invested billions. In late 2023, Google announced it would invest $2 billion in Anthropic, after it already invested a previous $300 million in early 2023.