Nvidia Can’t Escape Major Justice Department Scam

The chipmaker has been in the Justice Department’s crosshairs over a years-long antitrust investigation. Politico reported Thursday that the agency is investigating Nvidia’s acquisition of an Israeli AI startup called Run:ai. Nvidia bought the company for a reported $700 million in April.

Run:ai, which has been working with Nvidia since 2020, lets AI developers use just a fraction of the graphics processing units they would otherwise need. Using fewer chips solved two problems: It made buying GPUs cheaper and reduced the need for chips at a time when demand is so high that there are global shortages.

U.S. regulators are also looking into Nvidia as part of a broader investigation. They have received complaints from competitors that Nvidia has abused its dominant position and pressured cloud providers to buy a lot of Nvidia products, The Information reported on Thursday.

Nvidia stock prices rose more than twice since the beginning of the year. In June, it briefly became the most valuable company in the worldbecause its integrated circuits play a key role in the growing demand for artificial intelligence.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment sent outside business hours.

“We compete based on decades of investment and innovation, rigorously complying with all laws, making NVIDIA available in every cloud and on-premise for every enterprise, and ensuring customers can choose the solution that’s best for them,” NVIDIA said in a statement to Reuters.

The Justice Department’s focus on Nvidia follows a series of other recent government investigations into Big Tech. The FTC is scrutinizing the deals more closely and pushing for more aggressive competition policy under the Biden administration.

Earlier this year, the Department of Justice sued Apple faces antitrust lawsuit in which it was accused of illegally maintaining a monopoly on the smartphone market by “delaying, degrading, or completely blocking” other technologies in the smartphone market.

In 2023, the FTC filed an antitrust complaint against Amazonclaiming that the e-commerce giant prevents rivals from lowering prices and charges sellers excessive fees, which stifles innovation and competition.

In 2022, the FTC repeatedly tried to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a leading video game developer. The agency said the $69 billion deal would reduce competition in gaming.

The US government recently filed a similar motion lawsuits against TeslaGoogle parent AlphabetAND Finish.