Partnerships Between Cloud Service Providers and AI Developers

The Federal Trade Commission examines the partnerships linking Microsoft with OpenAI and Amazon and Google with Anthropic. The report describes agreements in which AI developers receive large investments and access to scarce computing capacity while committing substantial spending to a partner's cloud services. These arrangements can entrench a small number of firms at both the model and infrastructure layers of the market.

FTC staff identify several competition risks: higher switching costs, restricted access to compute and specialized talent for rivals, and access by cloud partners to sensitive technical and business information. The partnerships may also give established firms rights that affect governance or product decisions at the AI developer. The report maps these structural concerns; it does not itself announce a final enforcement judgment.