Thursday, September 28th 2023
NVIDIA's French Office Reportedly Raided by Competition Regulators
Bloomberg reports that French competition regulators have raided a business alleged to be engaging in "anti-competitive practices in the graphics cards sector," which the Wall Street Journal identified as NVIDIA. The dawn raid was authorized by a liberty and custody judge, France's competition authority said in its statement, where it did not name NVIDIA. The regulator clarified that raids "do not presuppose the existence of a breach of law, which only a full investigation into the merits of the case could establish, if appropriate."
It's pertinent to note here, that while the anti-competitive allegations concern "graphics cards," the allegation is that the company (identified by WSJ as NVIDIA) has cornered the AI GPU market, and which is responsible for the rise of NVIDIA as the largest hardware company in Silicon Valley by market capitalization. While NVIDIA's AI HPC processors lack any raster graphics components, they are still considered GPUs, as they are built on the same principles, and for the most part, share a microarchitecture with gaming GPUs. Meanwhile, Bloomberg notes that the NVIDIA stock remains completely unfazed by the developments in France. "The shares gained 1.5% to $430.89 at the close in New York trading Thursday, bringing their year-to-date gain to 195%," it wrote.
Sources:
Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal
It's pertinent to note here, that while the anti-competitive allegations concern "graphics cards," the allegation is that the company (identified by WSJ as NVIDIA) has cornered the AI GPU market, and which is responsible for the rise of NVIDIA as the largest hardware company in Silicon Valley by market capitalization. While NVIDIA's AI HPC processors lack any raster graphics components, they are still considered GPUs, as they are built on the same principles, and for the most part, share a microarchitecture with gaming GPUs. Meanwhile, Bloomberg notes that the NVIDIA stock remains completely unfazed by the developments in France. "The shares gained 1.5% to $430.89 at the close in New York trading Thursday, bringing their year-to-date gain to 195%," it wrote.
23 Comments on NVIDIA's French Office Reportedly Raided by Competition Regulators
"Fishing expeditions" are of course illegal, the authorities (here the equivalent of a mix of the FTC and the Treasury in the US) need probable cause, or a judge would never allow it.
That means either they got a decent tip or they produced an important investigation package in front of a judge already.
Also, tech giants are under a lot of scrutiny in major EU countries and in Brussels. The EU strives to be the "legal normative default" power and thus is starting to flex its muscles.
If there are more serious allegations there's allways threatening that Europe might well be cut off from this vital service of modern world (Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft etc.), and then we're back in the realm of minor fines.
The principle of Presumption of Innocence. Just like everyone else, nVidia is "innocent until proven guilty" in court.
Not sure if that is how French law works, but it is how it is suppose to be in US and UK based systems.
Not a very big matter to dwell on, I know. Wasn't expecting anyone to pay much attention. *shrugs*
My best friend is a department director in AI Research at Google in Paris and he always tells me how the company is constantly pissed at the EU consumer protection regulations, so hey, that means it's kinda working
i also wonder if a company like nvidia wouldn’t just have everyone work on remote desktops that store everything on a server with the most resource intensive encryption locking up all communication between client and server.
Because it's not like 444 example of people falling for this. ;)
You don´t mess with consumers or the little guy in France. Revolution is in their blood. I remember a tax hike some years ago... a suburb got burnt down.
We have a lot to learn.
Good on France, hit them well and hit them hard!