Tech giant Microsoft informed European antitrust investigators that competitor Google’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) advantage stems from the latter’s AI-optimized hardware and vast data repository.
Microsoft made these remarks in response to a January European Commission survey on the degree of competition amongst tech companies in generative AI.
When given written instructions, generative AI tools like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT may generate content that seems human. However, these technologies have raised worries about disinformation and intellectual property breaches.
“Today, only one company – Google – is vertically integrated in a manner that provides it with strength and independence at every AI layer from chips to a thriving mobile app store. Everyone must rely on partnerships to innovate and compete,” according to Microsoft’s report to the Commission.
Microsoft outlined how its massive private data sets from YouTube and the Google Search Index allowed it to train the massive language models that underpin Gemini, and how Google’s AI chips will give it a competitive advantage for years to come.
“YouTube provides an unparalleled set of video content; it hosts an estimated 14 billion videos. Google has access to such content; but other AI developers do not,” Microsoft noted.
Antitrust authorities in the European Union are investigating Microsoft’s over $10 billion investment in OpenAI; the business attempted to allay regulatory worries regarding these kinds of alliances between established tech companies and startups.
It mentioned that Google and Amazon had invested in Anthropic, that Nvidia and Salesforce had invested in Cohere, and that Microsoft had invested in the French company Mistral.
“All of these startups relied on different forms of investments and partnerships that enabled them to enter and expand in the space,” Microsoft stated. “Encouraging pro-competitive partnerships in the AI space is an effective way to prevent companies from becoming vertically integrated in a manner that would result in an anti-competitive advantage.”
