United States: US DOJ opens antitrust probes into Nvidia

 The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched two separate antitrust probes into GPU and AI giant Nvidia to evaluate whether the company has abused its market dominance and forced companies to buy additional products to receive GPUs, while penalizing those that buy rival chips. This comes as Microsoft, one of Nvidia's largest customers, was reportedly concerned that not buying Nvidia's networking cables would lead the company to be slower in delivering its much-sought-after GPUs.

Nvidia spokesperson Mylene Mangalindan said: “Nvidia wins on merit, as reflected in our benchmark results and value to customers. We compete based on decades of investment and innovation, scrupulously adhering to all laws, making Nvidia openly available in every cloud and…for every enterprise, and ensuring that customers can choose whatever solution is best for them. We… are happy to provide any information regulators need.” 

 At the same time, reports from Politico noted that the DOJ is looking into the company's $700 million acquisition of Run:ai from April. The Israeli startup helps to manage and optimize distributed AI deployments via its open platform built on Kubernetes, essentially allowing for more work to be done with fewer chips.