Federal regulators have reportedly reached an agreement to investigate the dominant roles played by Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia in the rapidly evolving AI industry.
The New York Times reports that the Justice Department and the FTC have struck a deal over the past week to proceed with antitrust investigations into the conduct of these AI giants, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The agreement, expected to be finalized in the coming days, marks the strongest sign yet of the escalating regulatory scrutiny into the powerful technology.
Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., holds a Nvidia Corp., Drive PX Auto-Pilot Computer during the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Under the arrangement, the Justice Department will take the lead in investigating Nvidia, the world’s largest maker of AI chips, to determine whether its behavior has violated antitrust laws. Meanwhile, the FTC will spearhead the examination of OpenAI, the creator of the popular ChatGPT chatbot, and Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI and secured deals with other AI companies.
The intensifying scrutiny by the Justice Department and the FTC into AI comes as the technology rapidly advances, with the potential to disrupt jobs, information, and people’s lives. Both agencies have been at the forefront of the effort to rein in the power of the biggest tech companies, having previously investigated and sued Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta for alleged violations of antimonopoly laws.
While Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI had largely escaped the brunt of regulatory scrutiny for months, this began to change as generative AI burst onto the scene in late 2022, creating an industry frenzy. In July, the FTC opened an investigation into whether OpenAI had harmed consumers through its data collection practices. The agency also launched a broad inquiry in January into strategic partnerships between tech giants and AI start-ups.
Nvidia, OpenAI, and Microsoft have been in the spotlight as some of the biggest winners of the AI boom, raising questions about their dominance. Nvidia’s stock price has soared more than 200 percent over the past year, with its market capitalization exceeding $3 trillion for the first time on Wednesday. Microsoft, the world’s most valuable public tech company, has become a leading purveyor of artificial intelligence through its ownership of 49 percent of OpenAI and the integration of the start-up’s technology into its own products.
Read more at the New York Times here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.