The United Kingdom's antitrust regulator is currently scrutinizing the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI.

The antitrust regulator in the UK announced on Friday that it would assess the possibility of initiating an investigation into Microsoft's multi-billion dollar collaboration with OpenAI.

It came after the revelation by the creator of ChatGPT that the U.S. tech giant would hold a non-voting board seat in the partnership.

The examination will assess whether the collaboration constitutes an "acquisition of control," where one party gains substantial influence over another, as stated by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Friday.

This marks the regulator's second scrutiny of the U.S. software giant's activities this year, with an additional focus on determining if the partnership has given rise to a significant merger situation.

"There have recently been a number of developments in the governance of OpenAI, some of which involved Microsoft," the CMA said.

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They added, "In light of these developments, the CMA is now issuing an ITC to determine whether the Microsoft / OpenAI partnership, including recent developments, has resulted in a relevant merger situation and, if so, the potential impact on competition."

The decision follows Microsoft's November declaration of assuming a non-voting role on OpenAI's board

Microsoft Vice Chair and president Brad Smith said in a statement, "The only thing that has changed is that Microsoft will now have a non-voting observer on OpenAI’s Board, which is very different from an acquisition such as Google’s purchase of DeepMind in the UK,"

He mentioned that the company would collaborate extensively with the CMA. There was no immediate response from OpenAI regarding the request for comment.