Giant companies working together isn’t an AI-age phenomenon. Go back 10, 20, 30 years and you’ll see that despite the public perception of competitiveness all the largest tech companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Amazon) buy/sell to each other, sign partnerships and have tight economic interdependencies.

Who said it’s new? :)

However if you look at the trust busting era what preceded it was this exact kind of private “cooperation” to prevent government involvement