[News] NVIDIA Faces Potential Antitrust Charges in France, U.S. and EU Close Behind

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On July 1st, according to a report from Reuters, the French antitrust authority plans to file charges against NVIDIA, accusing the company of engaging in anti-competitive practices, making France the first country to take such action against NVIDIA.

The French competition regulator had raided NVIDIA’s local offices in September last year. At the time, they did not disclose the details of the investigation or the company involved, only stating it was related to the graphics card sector.

However, as per a previous report from Bloomberg, NVIDIA claimed that the French agency collected information from them regarding their business and competition in the graphics card and cloud service provider market as part of an ongoing inquiry into competition in those markets.

Sources cited by Reuters’ report indicated that last year’s raid was part of a broader investigation into cloud computing. With the surge in global chip demand following the advent of ChatGPT, NVIDIA, as the world’s largest manufacturer of AI and computer graphics cards, has naturally attracted close scrutiny from antitrust authorities in Europe and the United States.

NVIDIA previously disclosed in regulatory filings that both EU and French regulators had requested information about its graphics card products. The French antitrust authority has been actively investigating to understand NVIDIA’s key role in AI processors, its pricing policies, chip shortages, and the impact on prices.

Last Friday, the French authorities released a report on competition in generative AI, highlighting the risk of chip suppliers abusing their power. The report pointed out concerns about the chip industry’s heavy reliance on NVIDIA’s CUDA software for chip programming. Additionally, NVIDIA’s focus on investing in AI cloud service provider CoreWeave has also raised significant concerns among the authorities.

Reportedly, it is understood that companies violating French antitrust rules could face fines of up to 10% of their global annual revenue, though they can choose to make concessions to avoid penalties.

Moreover, the European Commission is currently gathering informal feedback to determine if NVIDIA has breached its antitrust rules, although it has not yet launched a formal investigation into anti-competitive behavior.

On the other hand, the New York Times reported on June 5th that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have reached an agreement, led by senior officials of both agencies, over the past week. The DOJ will investigate whether NVIDIA has violated antitrust laws, while the FTC will examine the conducts of OpenAI and Microsoft.

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(Photo credit: NVIDIA)