NVIDIA was accused of engaging in anti-competitive acts in the AI chip field, and France took the lead with antitrust

According to an anonymous source, the French antitrust monitoring agency is planning to accuse Nvidia of competition violations, and it is expected that it will be the first country to take antitrust administrative action against Nvidia.
French authorities entered the graphics card industry last September with the aim of gathering more information on abuses of market power. At the time, it was not confirmed that the company was Nvidia, but Nvidia later admitted that France and other institutions were reviewing the company's business actions.
This rapid inspection was part of an extensive study focusing on the AI processor market following cloud computing market research. Nvidia, the world's largest AI and computer graphics card manufacturer, saw a sharp rise in demand for chips after the release of its generation-based artificial intelligence application ChatGPT, leading to close scrutiny by Western antitrust law enforcement agencies.
At the moment, French authorities and Nvidia have declined to comment on the matter. Nvidia stated in surveillance documents from February this year that it was asked by EU and French surveillance authorities to provide functional information on the company's GPU products. “Our AI-related market position is receiving more attention globally from surveillance authorities.” Nvidia stated at the time.
France's antitrust watchdog continues to investigate Nvida's important role within AI processors, pricing policies, chip shortages, and the impact on prices. In a report on generative artificial intelligence competition released last Friday by the French supervisory authority, it is pointed out that chip suppliers may abuse their power.
The report expressed concern over the industry's reliance on CUDA chip program software, which is the only system fully compatible with GPUs required for accelerated computation, and also points out that Nvidia has recently invested in CoreWeave, a cloud service provider specializing in AI.
Companies that violate the French Antimonopoly Authority can be fined up to 10% of global revenue for the year, but concessions can be offered to avoid foul play. The biggest fine by the agency was €1.24 billion ($1.33 billion) since 2011, of which €1.1 billion was a fine against Apple and the remainder was a fine against two distributors.
In Brussels, the European Commission is gathering informal opinions on whether Nvida has breached anti-monopoly laws, but has yet to launch an official investigation.
Last November, French Finance Minister Bruno Lemaire stated that Nvidia's dominant position fosters inequality between nations and curbs fair competition. He pointed out that 92% of Nvidia's GPUs are being supplied. “If we want fair competition, we need more companies. We need lots of private companies, not just one company that controls all devices.” Mr. Lemaire said.
At the same time, according to sources, the US Department of Justice is leading the Nvidian investigation and is reportedly conducting a joint investigation with the Federal Trade Commission (FTF) to analyze major technology companies.
In response to actions relating to France's antitrust law, Nvida's stock price fell more than 3.8% when trading began on Monday, then surged and fell slightly by 0.32% at noon to $123.15. Since the beginning of this year, Nvida's stock price has risen by more than 100%, and the company's total market value has exceeded 3 trillion dollars.