French regulators reportedly plan to press charges against Nvidia for alleged anti-competitive practices. Nvidia has emerged as the dominant supplier of GPUs and high-speed networking equipment, which is essential for constructing training clusters for developing advanced AI models.
The charges, first reported by Reuters, follow a September raid on Nvidia’s French offices. The raid aimed to gather evidence about the American GPU manufacturer as part of a broader investigation into the cloud computing sector, which found some US companies may have hindered competition in the region.
French regulators are not the only ones closely examining Nvidia’s market dominance. The European Union is reportedly investigating the GPU vendor to determine if corrective action is necessary. Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice is reportedly gearing up for a probe into whether Nvidia has overstepped into monopoly territory.
While the specific charges that French regulators will bring against Nvidia remain shrouded in uncertainty, a recent report by the country’s competition watchdog has singled out Nvidia as a potential concern. The Autorité de la Concurrence has identified several risks, including price fixing, production restrictions, unfair contractual conditions, and discriminatory behaviour. The watchdog has also expressed unease about the sector’s reliance on Nvidia’s CUDA chip programming software, which is fully compatible with the GPUs essential for accelerated computing. Furthermore, Nvidia’s investments in AI-focused cloud service providers like CoreWeave have raised additional red flags.
The comments were part of a broader investigation into the competitive landscape of generative AI companies in France. The report explored issues such as access to compute infrastructure, data, and talent and offered recommendations for the next steps in the investigation.