Microsoft's hiring of artificial intelligence startup Inflection's staff including its co-founders will not be scrutinised under European Union merger rules, EU antitrust regulators said on Wednesday.

Key Takeaways The European Commission said it would not be investigating possible antitrust violations related to Microsoft's agreement with AI startup Inflection AI.Officials said their decision came as seven member nations of the European Union withdrew their initial requests for a probe.

The European Commission will stop looking into whether Microsoft's hiring of Inflection AI staff breached EU merger rules after seven EU countries dropped their requests for an investigation, the EU executive said in a press release on Wednesday (18 September).

The Dutch market regulator said on Thursday it needed more powers to investigate deals at its own level, a day after the European Union antitrust regulators said they would not take action against Microsoft's hiring of artificial intelligence startup Inflection's staff.

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has cleared Microsoft’s hiring of employees from Inflection AI, an artificial intelligence startup founded by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman.

According to Reuters, Microsoft agreed to pay approximately $650 million as part of the deal, gaining access to Inflection's AI models and enabling the startup to reimburse its investors.

EU antitrust regulators will not take action against Microsoft's hiring of artificial intelligence startup Inflection's staff including its co-founders after seven EU countries dropped their requests asking their bigger peer to examine the deal,