Trudeau acknowledges charges in Nijjar killing, calls for commitment to democracy
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
British competition regulators said Wednesday they'll scrutinize recent artificial intelligence deals by Microsoft and Amazon over concerns that the moves could thwart competition in the AI industry.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it's looking into Microsoft's partnership with France's Mistral AI and the company's hiring of key staff from another startup, Inflection AI. The watchdog also separately announced that it's investigating Amazon's US$4 billion investment in San Francisco-based Anthropic.
Big Tech companies have been pouring money into generative AI startups amid growing public and business interest in the technology, but the investments have also drawn attention from antitrust authorities.
The U.K. watchdog said it was seeking comments from "interested third parties," before deciding whether to carry out an in-depth antitrust investigation.
"We will assess, objectively and impartially, whether each of these three deals fall within U.K. merger rules and, if they do, whether they have any impact on competition in the U.K.," the watchdog's executive director of mergers, Joel Bamford, said in a statement.
Microsoft said it will provide the watchdog with the information it needs to carry out its inquiries.
"We remain confident that common business practices such as the hiring of talent or making a fractional investment in an AI start up promote competition and are not the same as a merger," the company said.
Microsoft last month hired Mustafa Suleyman, who co-founded Google's DeepMind AI research lab, to head up its consumer artificial intelligence business, along with the chief scientist and several top engineers and researchers from Inflection, his AI startup.
Microsoft also teamed up earlier this year with Mistral, which has become France's AI darling after being founded only last year. That followed Microsoft's previous existing partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which is also facing scrutiny from the CMA.
Mistral said it's "fully committed to cooperating with the CMA throughout this process to ensure that our long-term independence and access to the market are upheld."
Amazon, meanwhile, has spent billions for a minority stake in Anthropic. The two companies are collaborating to develop so-called foundation models, which underpin the generative AI systems that have captured global attention.
"It's unprecedented for the CMA to review a collaboration of this type," Amazon said in a statement. "Unlike partnerships between other AI startups and large technology companies, our collaboration with Anthropic includes a limited investment, doesn't give Amazon a board director or observer role, and continues to have Anthropic running its models on multiple cloud providers."
The CMA said it's stepping up its scrutiny of the market for foundation models after it published a report that highlighted the risk that powerful companies could use partnerships with key AI players to strengthen their positions.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Princess Anne paid tribute to veterans buried at a cemetery in British Columbia today, laying a wreath to honour the more than 2,500 military personnel and family members buried there.
Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby in a photo finish, edging out Forever Young and Sierra Leone for the upset victory.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.