The Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) will transfer forward with a wide-ranging antitrust probe into Microsoft’s AI operations. Introduced within the remaining days of the Biden administration, the Trump administration’s new FTC chair Andrew Ferguson will lead the probe. The FTC despatched Microsoft a civil investigative demand late final years asking it to supply knowledge about its AI fashions, together with how coaching knowledge is obtained and the way a lot it prices to coach an AI. The civil investigative demand stretches all the best way again to 2016 and covers almost a decade’s price of knowledge.

Why the FTC is investigating Microsoft

The company may also examine Microsoft for canceling a few of its personal inside AI growth after agreeing to spend money on competitor OpenAI. Microsoft didn’t disclose its funding in OpenAI to regulators forward of time, because it ought to have. The FTC will examine whether or not the deal was structured as a partnership to be able to circumvent a merger investigation, which might have led to the deal being blocked.

The FTC additionally requested for extra particulars about Microsoft’s knowledge facilities and the tech big’s issue acquiring sufficient computing energy to satisfy buyer calls for. It additionally desires extra details about how Microsoft licenses software program bundles — opponents have complained that bundles like Microsoft 365 make it troublesome to compete towards the software program big.

The FTC stated it’s looking for to find out whether or not or not Microsoft’s different companies give it a bonus over different AI corporations and stated it hopes to get a greater grasp on cloud computing prices via the information supplied by Microsoft. These extra particulars and knowledge will assist decide whether or not or to not deliver a case towards Microsoft.

These investigations can take years and infrequently don’t lead to expenses. Microsoft will doubtless search to slim the scope of the knowledge and knowledge requested, which is a typical transfer throughout these investigations.

FTC to pursue different instances towards huge tech corporations

This transfer signifies that new FTC chair Ferguson intends to maintain investigating tech giants — a dedication he affirmed in his first public remarks on the finish of February when he referred to as investigating the tech sector his prime precedence.

Microsoft just isn’t the one tech firm at the moment below FTC investigation. Ferguson inherited a number of instances from the Biden administration, together with lawsuits towards Amazon Inc. and Meta Inc. (which owns Fb and Instagram).