UK competition watchdog clears Microsofts hiring of AI startups core staff [Video]

LONDON (AP) — British regulators on Wednesday cleared Microsoft’s hiring of key staff from startup Inflection AI, saying the deal wouldn’t stifle competition in the country’s artificial intelligence market.

The Competition and Markets Authority had opened a preliminary investigation in July into Microsoft’s recruitment of Inflection’s core team, including co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman, chief scientist Karen Simonyan and several top engineers and researchers.

The watchdog said its investigation found that the hirings amounted to a “merger situation” but that the “transaction does not give rise to a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition.”

Big technology companies have been facing scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic lately for gobbling up talent and products at innovative AI startups without formally acquiring them.

Three U.S. Senators called for the practice to be investigatedafter Amazon pulled a similar maneuver this year in a deal with San Francisco-based Adept that sent its CEO and key employees to the e-commerce giant. Amazon also got a license to Adept’s …