UK's CMA Rejects Probe into Microsoft-Mistral AI Tie-up

UK's CMA Rejects Probe into Microsoft-Mistral AI Tie-up
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UK's CMA Rejects Probe into Microsoft-Mistral AI Tie-up

UK's CMA Rejects Probe into Microsoft-Mistral AI Tie-up

Britain's competition watchdog said on Friday it would not investigate the partnership between Microsoft and Mistral AI, weeks after it invited views on the tie-up.

In February, Microsoft invested $16 million in Mistral AI, partnering to make the French start-up's artificial intelligence models available through its Azure platform. It has also invested in ChatGPT owner OpenAI.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the Mistral partnership did not qualify for investigation under Britain's merger regulations. "The CMA has considered information submitted by Microsoft and Mistral AI, together with feedback received in response to its invitation to comment," a CMA spokesperson said, Reuters reported.

"Based on the evidence, the CMA does not believe that Microsoft has acquired material influence over Mistral AI as a result of the partnership and therefore does not qualify for investigation."

The CMA in April sought comments on the partnership, as well as separate links between Microsoft and Inflection AI and a tie-up between Amazon and Anthropic.

A Microsoft spokesperson said: "Investment and partnership are essential to new players in the AI economy.

"We welcome the CMA's determination that our fractional investment and partnership with Mistral AI does not qualify as a merger or acquisition."

European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, who has been looking into Big Tech's partnerships with AI start-ups, met Mistral AI last month. "We need vibrant competition in AI, now," she wrote on X after the meeting.



SDAIA, KAUST Launch MiniGPT-Med Model to Help Doctors Diagnose Medical Radiology through AI

SDAIA, KAUST Launch MiniGPT-Med Model to Help Doctors Diagnose Medical Radiology through AI
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SDAIA, KAUST Launch MiniGPT-Med Model to Help Doctors Diagnose Medical Radiology through AI

SDAIA, KAUST Launch MiniGPT-Med Model to Help Doctors Diagnose Medical Radiology through AI

The Center of Excellence for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have introduced the MiniGPT-Med model.

The large multi-modal language model is designed to help doctors quickly and accurately diagnose medical radiology using artificial intelligence techniques.

Dr. Ahmed Alsinan, the Artificial Intelligence Advisor at the National Center for Artificial Intelligence and head of the scientific team at SDAIA, explained that the MiniGPT-Med model is capable of performing various tasks such as generating medical reports, answering medical visual questions, describing diseases, locating diseases, identifying diseases, and documenting medical descriptions based on entered medical images.

The model was trained on different medical images, including X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs.

The MiniGPT-Med model, derived from large-scale language models, is specifically tailored for medical applications and demonstrates significant versatility across different imaging methods, including X-rays, CT scans, and MRI. This enhances its utility in medical diagnosis.

Dr. Alsinan highlighted that the MiniGPT-Med model was developed collaboratively by artificial intelligence specialists from SDAIA and KAUST.

The model exhibits advanced performance in generating medical reports, achieving 19% higher efficiency than previous models. It serves as a general interface for radiology diagnosis, enhancing diagnostic efficiency across various medical imaging applications.