(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 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 and Anthropic, owner of the generative AI chatbot Claude, has also drawn scrutiny from the British watchdog.