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NVIDIA offices in France have reportedly been raided by the French Competition Authority early morning on Wednesday September 27. According to a press release from Autorité de la concurrence, a dawn raid was conducted on the offices of a “company specializing in graphics cards” within the region.
NVIDIA is not specifically mentioned anywhere in the press release. But according to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, NVIDIA was indeed the company referenced by Autorité de la concurrence. Based on the details given, the raid revolves around an investigation into NVIDIA’s potentially anticompetitive practices in the GPU market. It’s unclear what the agency did during the raid or if it seized any documents or information. But The WSJ notes that raids such as this one often include that kind of activity. With authorities seizing physical and digital materials and even interviewing employees.
NVIDIA’s offices were raided as part of a larger investigation into cloud computing
The raid was not just about NVIDIA’s GPU market dominance. Even if that was focus of it. It’s also reportedly part of a broader investigation. Back in June the Autorité de la concurrence published a lengthy press release about the health of the cloud market. In it the agency discusses its intent to determine if newer, smaller companies are able to compete with much larger ones. The raid suggests that the agency has reason to believe the answer might be no. It’s also keen to point out however that a raid does not mean any laws were broken.
“Such dawn raids do not pre-suppose the existence of a breach of the law which could be imputed to the company involved in the alleged practices, which only a full investigation into the merits of the case could establish, if appropriate” the agency says. Basically, the agency is not assuming NVIDIA broke any antitrust laws. It does intend to find out though. And that’s what an investigation will allow to happen. NVIDIA has seen lots of success in the past few years thanks to a rising demand for its AI chips. And that seems to have earned it a little more scrutiny.