French government searches Nvidia offices, EU assesses launch of antitrust probe

Nvidia’s dominance in AI chips has attracted the attention of EU national authorities. The Wall Street Journal reported that French antitrust authorities searched the French office of the GPU maker last week to investigate whether Nvidia had illegally monopolized the market. The European Competition Commission also said it is collecting information to decide whether to launch a formal investigation into Nvidia. The French Competition Authority (FCA) announced on Wednesday that it has searched the French offices of manufacturers in order to investigate whether there is illegal monopoly behavior in the graphics chip market. However, the French government stated that the search operation was part of the authorities' investigation, but whether the manufacturer violated competition would need to be confirmed through further investigation. FCA did not specify which company it was, but the Washington Daily quoted sources who confirmed it was Nvidia; during the search, French police seized physical and digital documents and interviewed Nvidia employees in the office. Nvidia declined to comment. On the other hand, Bloomberg quoted sources as reporting that the European Competition Commission has begun informal interviews with industry players to understand whether Nvidia has market manipulation behavior in enterprise and game AI chips. This will also serve as the basis for the Commission to decide whether to formally investigate. Bloomberg reported that Nvidia’s A100 and H100 dominate 80% of the AI ​​chip market, making it difficult for traditional CPU giants Intel and AMD to compete. Once the EU decides to launch an investigation and truly determines that there is a market monopoly, it may face billions dollar fine. The AI ​​craze in the industry not only sent Nvidia's stock price soaring, but also brought a lot of money to the company. Nvidia generated $13.51 billion in revenue last quarter alone, a 101% increase from the previous year. Nvidia's market capitalization has now stably exceeded one trillion US dollars.