U.S. DoJ launches Nvidia antitrust investigation — investigating potential strong-arm tactics related to AI GPU supply

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The U.S. gov't wants to find out whether Nvidia is using strongarm tactics.

Nvidia
(Image credit: Nvidia)

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into Nvidia, prompted by allegations of the company potentially exploiting its dominant position in the AI processor market, according to a report by The Information. The probe focuses on whether Nvidia's business practices unfairly limit competition by forcing its customers to buy products in bundles or using strongarm tactics to cease business with its rivals. 

The U.S. DoJ is reportedly examining whether Nvidia had threatened to punish customers who buy their AI processors from its rivals like AMD and Intel or smaller startups by delaying their long awaited orders. Such practices could clearly stifle competition and eventually limit options on the market of AI processors. However, Nvidia denies such business practices and asserts that it allocates GPUs fairly between its customers. 

The U.S. DoJ has reportedly contacted Nvidia competitors, including AMD, to acquire information about the complaints, The Information claims.  

Also, the investigation is looking into allegations that Nvidia pressured cloud service providers into purchasing multiple products together, such as A100 or H100 GPUs for AI and HPC workloads along with Mellanox-branded networking gear, possibly restricting their choices. The DoJ is also investigating claims that Nvidia may have imposed higher prices on networking equipment for customers opting for AI chips from competitors like AMD and Intel.  

Nvidia currently holds a significant share of the AI processor market, approximately 80%, according to some analysts. This dominant position has raised concerns among competitors and regulators, who worry about the company's influence on market dynamics. The ongoing investigation aims to determine if Nvidia's actions constitute an abuse of this market power. 

In response to the investigation, Nvidia said that it operates within legal boundaries, emphasizing its commitment to offering products transparently across various platforms, including cloud and on-premises solutions. The company has expressed readiness to cooperate with the investigation and provide necessary information to regulators. 

The U.S. DoJ investigation of Nvidia follows a similar investigation by French authorities. The French Competition Authority is concerned that the AI sector essentially depends on Nvidia's processors that use the company's proprietary CUDA software stack.

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Pierce2623
    It would honestly be hilarious if the government forced Nvidia to open Cuda up to other GPUs. It would crush most of the reason for their monopoly in one fell stroke.
    Reply
  • tamalero
    Pierce2623 said:
    It would honestly be hilarious if the government forced Nvidia to open Cuda up to other GPUs. It would crush most of the reason for their monopoly in one fell stroke.
    I just hope the investigation goes deep.
    Imagine if Nvidia did what intel did with Lenovo, IBM, HP, Dell, etc..
    Aka forcing their product makers to only make their systems or at least a gigantic percentage that makes competition meaningless.
    Reply
  • husker
    "The probe focuses on whether Nvidia's business practices unfairly limit competition by forcing its customers to buy products in bundles or using strongarm tactics to cease business with its rivals. "

    Sorry, but this is just called doing business. I'm not an Nvidia fan, I own several AMD products and none from Nvidia, but I have to set aside fanboy thinking and be rational. Since when is bundling illegal? My cable provider, Comcast, bundles all kinds of things - they won't just let me pay for the 3 channels I want. Call the FBI! Alert the DOJ! I demand justice! No, that's just business. Nvidia has a big chunk of the market? Well that's not fair! In the kindergarten rules of business everyone should be equal and get a wonderful participation trophy for their boardroom trophy case.
    Reply
  • artk2219
    husker said:
    "The probe focuses on whether Nvidia's business practices unfairly limit competition by forcing its customers to buy products in bundles or using strongarm tactics to cease business with its rivals. "

    Sorry, but this is just called doing business. I'm not an Nvidia fan, I own several AMD products and none from Nvidia, but I have to set aside fanboy thinking and be rational. Since when is bundling illegal? My cable provider, Comcast, bundles all kinds of things - they won't just let me pay for the 3 channels I want. Call the FBI! Alert the DOJ! I demand justice! No, that's just business. Nvidia has a big chunk of the market? Well that's not fair! In the kindergarten rules of business everyone should be equal and get a wonderful participation trophy for their boardroom trophy case.
    There is a difference between offering a better product or better pricing than your rivals, and selling on merit. And only offering better products or pricing, if the company that you sell it to swears to not buy anything from your competitors. That second scenario isn't business, its extortion.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    This is on a similar vein as what AMD and Intel settled a long time ago, no?

    Eerily similar at least at a high level.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • ManDaddio
    I was just looking at things as NVIDIA ensuring commitment. They have to fork out a lot of cash to secure TSMC processing.
    Therefore, they would want to make sure no one backs out of deals.

    Market worth doesn't mean cash worth.

    Then the government strong arms NVIDIA with fake "we're gonna punish China" GPU limitations.

    NVIDIA then has to butcher GPUs or call for production that wasn't planned which cost extra money or money loss. Regardless of whether you think they overprice things. That effects business.

    It's funny how governments go after companies just trying to survive the ecosystem but ignore the elephants like Microsoft, Alphabet, Black Rock, Vanguard, Meta, Big media corpos, etc. for much more horrible practices.
    Reply
  • artk2219
    ManDaddio said:
    I was just looking at things as NVIDIA ensuring commitment. They have to fork out a lot of cash to secure TSMC processing.
    Therefore, they would want to make sure no one backs out of deals.

    Market worth doesn't mean cash worth.

    Then the government strong arms NVIDIA with fake "we're gonna punish China" GPU limitations.

    NVIDIA then has to butcher GPUs or call for production that wasn't planned which cost extra money or money loss. Regardless of whether you think they overprice things. That effects business.

    It's funny how governments go after companies just trying to survive the ecosystem but ignore the elephants like Microsoft, Alphabet, Black Rock, Vanguard, Meta, Big media corpos, etc. for much more horrible practices.

    You do realize that Nvidia is the third largest company in the world right? A few months ago they were THE largest company in the world. I'm not saying that the other big companies at the top don't need to have investigations for all sorts of things as well, they absolutely do . But this isn't some big old US government going after poor tiny little old Nvidia. This is the US government investigating allegations of anti competitive actions from one of the largest companies in its borders, or anyone's borders for that matter. They should absolutely look into all of this.
    Reply
  • husker
    artk2219 said:
    There is a difference between offering a better product or better pricing than your rivals, and selling on merit. And only offering better products or pricing, if the company that you sell it to swears to not buy anything from your competitors. That second scenario isn't business, its extortion.
    But apparently, they ARE offering a better product than their rivals. If not, then problem solved: everyone can just ignore Nvidia and instead go to whomever is offering something better. And they ARE selling it on merit, unless I missed the part where Nvidia is somehow forcing people to fill out order forms. @ManDaddio also makes a great point in that Nvidia is taking on a lot of risk in the process which any responsible company is going to want to mitigate in business terms.

    Crying extortion isn't a compelling augment for not getting what you want.
    Reply
  • artk2219
    husker said:
    But apparently, they ARE offering a better product than their rivals. If not, then problem solved: everyone can just ignore Nvidia and instead go to whomever is offering something better. And they ARE selling it on merit, unless I missed the part where Nvidia is somehow forcing people to fill out order forms. @ManDaddio also makes a great point in that Nvidia is taking on a lot of risk in the process which any responsible company is going to want to mitigate in business terms.

    Crying extortion isn't a compelling augment for not getting what you want.
    What exactly is it that i was asking for? The only things that I've stated are that there are allegations against Nvidia, and that they should be investigated. Its the same for many of the other largest companies in the world. I own quite a bit of Nvidia stock, there is my own personal money at stake in this, and I still believe whole heartedly that they should be investigated. Because there are many things more important than my own personal gain. If they did nothing wrong, its much ado about nothing, if they did, there should be repercussions. At least that is what should be the case in a properly regulated market.
    Reply