The tech giant will be under investigation by the organisation over its investment of the AI firm Mistral and the hiring of the DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman as head of the US company’s new AI division but are "confident" that there nothing untoward has happened.

A spokesperson for the company told CNBC: "We remain confident that common business practices such as the hiring of talent or making a fractional investment in an AI start-up promote competition and are not the same as a merger. We will provide the UK Competition and Markets Authority with the information it needs to complete its inquiries expeditiously."

The comments come shortly after CMA bosses said they will "assess" the situation to see if they have indeed broken any rules.

Joel Bamford, the executive director of mergers at the CMA, said: “We will assess, objectively and impartially, whether each of these three deals fall within UK merger rules and, if they do, whether they have any impact on competition in the UK.”