The US Department of Justice has sent subpoenas to Nvidia Corp and other companies as it seeks evidence that the chipmaker contravened antitrust laws, an escalation of its investigation into the dominant provider of artificial intelligence (AI) processors.
The department, which had previously delivered questionnaires to companies, is now sending legally binding requests that oblige recipients to provide information, people familiar with the investigation said.
That takes the government a step closer to launching a formal complaint.
Photo: Bloomberg
Antitrust officials are concerned that Nvidia is making it harder to switch to other suppliers and penalizes buyers that do not exclusively use its AI chips, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.
Nvidia shares, which suffered a record-setting rout on Tuesday, fell further in late trading after Bloomberg reported on the subpoenas.
Still, the stock has more than doubled this year — fueled by explosive sales growth at the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker.
In response to questions about the probe, Nvidia said that its market dominance stems from the quality of its products, which deliver faster performance.
“Nvidia wins on merit, as reflected in our benchmark results and value to customers, who can choose whatever solution is best for them,” Nvidia said in a statement.
Nvidia has drawn regulatory scrutiny since becoming the world’s most valuable chipmaker and a key beneficiary of the AI spending boom. Sales have been more than doubling each quarter, and it has eclipsed onetime chip leaders such as Intel Corp.
In the probe, regulators have been investigating Nvidia’s acquisition of Run:ai, a deal announced in April. That company makes software for managing AI computing, and there are concerns that the tie-up would make it more difficult for customers to switch away from Nvidia chips.
Regulators also are inquiring whether Nvidia gives preferential supply and pricing to customers who use its technology exclusively or buy its complete systems, the people said.
Separately, Nvidia has joined a US$100 million-plus funding round for Tokyo start-up Sakana AI.
Sakana, founded last year by a pair of former Google engineers, said it would team up with Nvidia on research, data center access and “AI community-building” locally.
Sakana plans to train low-cost generative AI models using small datasets. Its team unveiled several AI models for Japanese speakers this year.
Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said he was drawn to Sakana’s endeavors in Japan to popularize AI.
“Countries are embracing sovereign AI to capture and codify their data, culture and language through their own unique large language models,” Huang said. “The team at Sakana AI is helping spur the democratization of AI in Japan.”
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