US DOJ Launches Two Antitrust Investigations Against NVIDIA

TapTechNews August 2nd news, according to Politico and The Information, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has now launched two antitrust investigations against NVIDIA.

The first investigation will review NVIDIA's acquisition of Run:ai; the second investigation aims to assess whether NVIDIA has abused its dominant position in the AI chip field to prevent customers from using competitors' products.

In April this year, NVIDIA spent 700 million US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 5.071 billion Chinese yuan) to acquire the Israeli startup Run:ai. Due to the recent close attention of such large technology companies' acquisition behaviors by US and international regulatory agencies, NVIDIA may be involved in issues such as anti-competitive business practices and market monopoly.

The major regulatory agencies in the US, the EU, and the UK also jointly issued a statement last month, pledging to prevent strategies that undermine fair competition or lead to unfair or deceptive practices in the AI ecosystem.

Due to competition complaints, the DOJ will investigate whether NVIDIA has abused its market dominant position to force cloud service providers to buy its products. The investigation will also look into whether NVIDIA charges higher network equipment fees for customers who choose to buy AI chips from competitors such as AMD and Intel.

NVIDIA spokesperson Mylene Mangalindan told Politico: We compete based on decades of investment and innovation, strictly abide by all laws, serve every enterprise in every cloud and on-premises environment, and ensure that customers can choose the solution that best suits them. We will continue to support aspiring innovators in various industries and markets and are happy to provide any information required by regulatory agencies.

Related reading:

US Senators and ten opinion groups separately urge the US DOJ to investigate NVIDIA's monopoly behavior.