Aug 8 (Reuters) - Britain's competition watchdog said on

Thursday it had started an investigation into whether Amazon's ( AMZN )

partnership with AI startup Anthropic raised

competition, days after it began a similar probe on Alphabet's

collaboration with the startup.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it now had

until Oct. 4 for its so-called Phase 1 decision to either refer

the artificial intelligence (AI)-focussed partnership for a

deeper probe or clear it of competition concerns.

"Amazon's ( AMZN ) collaboration with Anthropic does not raise any

competition concerns or meet the CMA's own threshold for

review," an Amazon ( AMZN ) spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

"Amazon ( AMZN ) holds no board seat nor decision-making power at

Anthropic, and Anthropic is free to work with any other provider

(and indeed has multiple partners)," the spokesperson said,

echoing comments from an Anthropic spokesperson.

"Our strategic partnerships and investor relationships do

not diminish our corporate governance independence or our

freedom to partner with others," the Anthropic spokesperson

said.

"We intend to cooperate with the CMA and provide them with a

comprehensive understanding of Amazon's ( AMZN ) investment and our

commercial collaboration."

Late in July, CMA launched a probe into Google parent

Alphabet's partnership with Anthropic, which was

co-founded by former OpenAI executives and siblings Dario and

Daniela Amodei.

Antitrust regulators around the world have been increasingly

concerned by multiple deals struck between smaller industry

startups and big tech giants.

Regulators in the United States, European Union and Britain

signed a joint statement in July promising to work together to

safeguard fair competition in the industry.