U.S. antitrust enforcers are opening an investigation into the relationships between leading artificial intelligence startups such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic and the tech giants that have invested billions of dollars into them. "We're scrutinizing whether these ties enable dominant firms to exert undue influence or gain privileged access in ways that could undermine fair competition," said Lina Khan, chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, in opening remarks at a Thursday AI forum. Khan said the market inquiry would review "the investments and partnerships being formed between AI developers and major cloud service providers." The FTC said on Thursday that it has issued "compulsory orders" to five companies -- cloud providers Amazon, Google and Microsoft, and AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI -- requiring them to provide information regarding investments and partnerships. Microsoft's close and years-long relationship with OpenAI is the best known of the partnerships.

Led by $500m venture financing of Black Sesame Intelligent Technology, total technology industry artificial intelligence venture financing deals worth $2.1bn were announced in Asia-Pacific in Q3 2022, according to GlobalData's deals database. Copy and paste the image source into your website to display the chart. The value marked a decrease of 25.5% over the previous quarter and a drop of 42.8% when compared with the last four-quarter average of $3.62bn. Asia-Pacific held a 29.45% share of the global technology industry artificial intelligence venture financing deal value that totalled $7.03bn in Q3 2022. China was the top country in Asia-Pacific's artificial intelligence venture financing deal value across technology industry.

Total Technology industry artificial intelligence deals worth $2.6bn were announced globally for July 2022, with the $1.46bn acquisition of 17.9% stake in Tsinghua Unigroup being the sector's biggest investment, according to GlobalData's deals database. Copy and paste the image source into your website to display the chart. The value marked a decrease of 53.7% over the previous month of $5.59bn and a drop of 66.6% when compared with the last 12-month average of $7.76bn. In terms of number of artificial intelligence deals, the sector saw a drop of 69.61% with 93 deals in July 2022 when compared to the last 12-month average of 306 deals. In value terms, Asia-Pacific led the activity with artificial intelligence deals worth $1.77bn in July 2022.

Total technology industry artificial intelligence deals worth $9.6bn were announced globally for February 2022, with the $2.58bn private equity deal with Informa being the sector's biggest investment, according to GlobalData's deals database. Copy and paste the image source into your website to display the chart. The value marked an increase of 44.2% over the previous month of $6.63bn and a rise of 8.3% when compared with the last 12-month average of $8.83bn. In terms of number of artificial intelligence deals, the sector saw a drop of 7.28% with 280 deals in February 2022 when compared to the last 12-month average of 302 deals. In value terms, North America led the activity with artificial intelligence deals worth $4.15bn in February 2022.

Artificial intelligence is one of the most popular technologies of this modern era. The technology has attracted the attention of most of the leading technology companies and nations across the globe including China and the United States. Nations and companies that have ventured or invested in this technology are currently competing to see who emerges as the leader in this space. As such, artificial intelligence (AI) was a no-brainer bet for most humans in 2018. According to a recent report from both CB Insights and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), venture capital financing of artificial intelligence companies increased by 72% last year, reaching a record of $9.3 billion.

Omar bin Sultan Al Olama, the UAE's minister of state for Artificial Intelligence, and Deepak Bagla, the managing director and CEO of Invest India, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create a bilateral Artificial Intelligence Bridge that envisages the generation of $20 billion in economic benefits during the next decade. WAM said that the AI Bridge aims to spur discussion and explore options for the UAE and India to grow their Artificial Intelligence economies, according to an announcement after the signing ceremony by Invest India, the national investment promotion ad facilitation agency of the Indian government. The UAE Minister said that in the coming years, "how a country chooses to embrace Artificial Intelligence will have a tremendous impact on its ability to innovate and prosper. Data and processing will be a catalyst for innovation and business growth and serve as the backbone of more effective and efficient service delivery system." The designated Indian signatory said his country, which is "the world's fastest expanding market opportunity with its talent pool of human capital, well-acknowledged for innovation – and the UAE, a hub of cutting edge technologies – are natural partners in the field of Artificial Intelligence."

A group of international tech firms and venture capitalists injected almost £1 billion ($1.4 billion) into the U.K.'s artificial intelligence (AI) industry on Thursday. The deal was backed by Japanese venture capital firm Global Brain, Canadian venture capital firm Chrysalix, U.K. automaker Rolls-Royce, the British government and other investors. The investment will be used to fund new specialist AI qualifications and computer science teachers, to tackle a skills shortage in the sector. Theresa May's government has been driving an industrial strategy to tap into the growing industry, which Gartner estimates will be worth more than $3.9 trillion in business value by 2022. "Artificial intelligence provides limitless opportunities to develop new, efficient and accessible products and services which transform the way we live and work," Greg Clark, U.K. business and energy secretary, said in a statement.

Artificial Intelligence company Soul Machines was officially launched this week after it attracted US $7.5 million in its initial financing round from Hong Kong-based venture capital firm Horizons Ventures, making it the University's biggest Series A fund raising deal to date. The company is developing a completely new user interface between humans and their machines, based on technology created by Dr Mark Sagar and his team at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) at the University of Auckland. Dr Sagar won two academy awards for his work on the Avatar blockbuster. He becomes the CEO of Soul Machines. He also heads the Bioengineering Institute's Lab for Animate Technologies.

Google, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Yahoo, Facebook, Intel, and Salesforce are all hustling to either invest in new artificial intelligence technology or acquire it outright both in New York and in other hubs across the USA. Lumped into this category are a variety of innovations, including image processing, natural language, machine learning and predictive APIs (application program interface). To find out how much activity has been going on within the AI sector in Silicon Alley, the New York Business Journal tapped PitchBook for help. PitchBook expects that as more AI technology gets integrated into different categories -- business intelligence, e-commerce, and healthcare -- the number of deals this year will surpass 2015 totals, both in terms of volume and capital invested (see the infographic above). According to previous coverage, a wide majority of deals across the U.S. (between 2010 to 2015) were seed stage, accounting for 50 percent of overall activity in 2015.