EUROPEAN Union antitrust regulators have concluded that Microsoft’s US$13 billion investment into OpenAI is not an acquisition, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday (Apr 17), signalling the deal will avoid a formal European probe that could have led to onerous remedies for the US tech giant.

Microsoft declined to comment, while OpenAI and a spokesperson of the European Commission did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

EU regulators had said in January that the deal may be subject to merger rules in the region. Microsoft, which has a non-voting position on OpenAI board, said late last year it did not own any portion of the ChatGPT maker.

But Microsoft is not out of the woods yet, with the EU competition enforcer still looking into partnerships between large digital market players and generative AI developers and providers that could lead to intrusive and lengthy investigations in their market power.

The Microsoft-OpenAI partnership is also under informal scrutiny in other regions.

UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is reviewing whether to launch a probe to see if the deal affects competition among British firms, while the US Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are reportedly considering an investigation.

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To avoid such probes, Microsoft is actively scouting partnerships with other artificial intelligence firms. Earlier this year, it announced a pact with French startup Mistral AI.

Bloomberg News first reported the development on Wednesday. REUTERS