On January 18, 2024, Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI UK Ltd., gives a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He reveals that Microsoft’s hiring of select former workers from artificial intelligence firms. Inflection has been referred for a first merger probe in the U.K
Key points of this project are given here,
- An initial merger probe has been referred to Microsoft in the United Kingdom regarding the hiring of staff from artificial intelligence firm Inflection.
- The Competition and Markets Authority may send a matter for a comprehensive investigation, referred to as a “Phase 2” probe if it determines that additional investigation is warranted.
- In an official statement, Microsoft expressed its “confidence that the hiring of talent fosters competition and ought not to be viewed as a merger.”
The hiring of Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of Inflection, and the majority of the startup’s employees will be evaluated to determine whether it qualifies as a merger under U.K. regulations and, as such, may lead to less competition in the artificial intelligence industry, according to a statement released on Tuesday by Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority. When the CMA determines that additional investigation is warranted, it may forward the case for a comprehensive investigation, or “Phase 2” probe. By September 11, the CMA promised to decide whether to send the matter for a Phase 2 inquiry.
In a statement released on Tuesday, a Microsoft representative told CNBC that the company is “confident that the hiring of talent promotes competition and should not be treated as a merger.” The representative also said that Microsoft would give the CMA the information required to finish its inquiries. In March, Microsoft announced that it had hired Suleyman from Inflection in addition to several other important staff members. Suleyman and Simonyan were both formerly employed by Google’s AI research facility, DeepMind.
In its statement on Tuesday, the CMA did not specify how the acquisition would reduce competition. Although it has previously stated that it was evaluating Microsoft’s “entry into associated arrangements with Inflection. Moreover, It’s a just recruiting practice. Microsoft allegedly paid Inflection $650 million in licensing fees so that Inflection could vend its AI models on the Azure cloud platform. This was reports from Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. Microsoft, for its part, simply said that it had hired “several members” of the seventy-person Inflection team when it announced the employment of Inflection employees, not revealing specifics of a licensing agreement.