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Nvidia has been a force in the generative artificial intelligence race, but now its dominance is reportedly under an antitrust investigation.
Officials at the U.S. Department of Justice are investigating complaints from the chipmaker’s rivals over its alleged abuse of its market dominance in AI chips, The Information reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The DOJ has reportedly reached out to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), AI chip startups, and other Nvidia competitors to gather information regarding complaints that include allegations of threatening customers who buy products from competitors, as well as Nvidia’s recent acquisitions of AI software startups.
Some of the chipmaker’s customers fear Nvidia will charge a higher price for its chips, or even restrict the number of chips it will sell, if a customer is also buying chips from competitors, customers’ employees told The Information.
Justice Department officials are reportedly investigating whether the chipmaker has pressured some of its customers, including cloud providers that rent servers powered by Nvidia’s chips to developers, to buy more of the company’s technology. One of Nvidia’s competitors has alleged to U.S. officials that customers buying chips, including the in-demand H100, and cables as a bundle pay less then those who buy just one of the products, The Information reported. Meanwhile, another rival reportedly alleged Nvidia capped the number of chips a customer could buy if it didn’t buy other products.
Nvidia’s competitors have also been questioned by DOJ officials over the company’s acquisition of AI software startup Run:ai, The Information reported. Investigators reportedly want to know if Run:ai is helping its customers use non-Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs, and if the acquisition impacts that.
“Nvidia wins on merit, as reflected in our benchmark results and value to customers,” an Nvidia spokesperson said in a statement shared with Quartz. “We compete based on decades of investment and innovation, scrupulously adhering to all laws, making Nvidia openly available in every cloud and on-prem for every enterprise, and ensuring that customers can choose whatever solution is best for them. We’ll continue to support aspiring innovators in every industry and market and are happy to provide any information regulators need.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In June, the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reportedly reached a deal to investigate Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI over potentially anti-competitive behavior in the AI space.