July 30 (Reuters) - Britain's competition watchdog is

investigating Google-parent Alphabet's partnership

with AI startup Anthropic and its impact on competition, the

regulator said on Tuesday.

This becomes the latest AI partnership to come under

scrutiny by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA),

which earlier this month launched a probe into Microsoft's ( MSFT )

hiring of some former staff of Inflection AI and its

partnership with the startup.

The CMA, which is seeking views on whether the

Alphabet-Anthropic partnership could lessen competition in the

UK, has set a deadline of Aug. 13 for its so-called phase 1

invitation to comment.

The partnership between Amazon ( AMZN ) and Anthropic, owner

of the generative AI chatbot Claude, has also drawn scrutiny

from the British watchdog.