Since the launch of ChatGPT, interest in generative AI has surged, and the development of foundation models has accelerated. However, competition concerns have been raised as the computing resources essential to the development and deployment of these models are concentrated in a few Big Tech firms, creating a major bottleneck. This paper focuses on partnerships between large-scale cloud service providers and AI startups developing foundation models, analyzing their competitive implications through the lens of merger review frameworks. In particular, this paper examines how such partnerships differ from full mergers and explores the implications of these distinctions for competition.