Nvidia, the California-based AI chip production giant, reportedly experienced a police raid at its French offices this week as part of a broader investigation by France's antitrust agency into the cloud computing sector.
Although neither Nvidia nor French law enforcement have officially commented on the incident, The Wall Street Journal reported on the raid on September 28.
A press release from France's antitrust agency, Autorité de la Concurrence, mentions a raid targeting the graphics card industry. The judge authorized the raid based on concerns over the company's "anti-competitive conduct in the field of graphics cards," according to the press release.
However, the agency clarified that the raid doesn't automatically imply illegal conduct attributed to the company. Autorité de la Concurrence referred to its own findings, which were published after a year-long investigation into the cloud computing sector. The study, released in June 2023, did not mention Nvidia but focused on other tech giants, specifically the three hyperscalers: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. These companies were highlighted for their significant impact on public cloud infrastructure and application spending in France in 2021, accounting for 80% of the growth in this sector.
The agency is exploring various options under national competition law and European data law to address potential issues arising from the dominance of these hyperscale cloud providers.
Nvidia's position as a leading hardware producer in the digital industry's most innovative sectors has brought it under regulatory scrutiny. In its recent quarterly report, the company revealed that U.S. regulators had asked it to restrict exports of AI chips to "certain Middle Eastern countries." However, the U.S. Commerce Department later denied this news.
