NVIDIA has reportedly been hit with a US Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust probe over the tactics the company allegedly employs to sell or lease its AI GPUs and data-center networking equipment, "The Information" reported. Shares of the NVIDIA stock fell 3.6% in the pre-market trading on Friday (08/02). The main complainants behind the probe appear to be a special interest group among the customers of AI GPUs, and not NVIDIA's competitors in the AI GPU industry per se. US Senator Elizabeth Warren and US progressives have been most vocal about calling upon the DOJ to investigate antitrust allegations against NVIDIA.

Meanwhile, US officials are reportedly reaching out to NVIDIA's competitors, including AMD and Intel, to gather information about the complaints. NVIDIA holds 80% of the AI GPU market, while AMD, and to a much lesser extent, Intel, have received spillover demand for AI GPUs. "The Information" report says that the complaint alleges NVIDIA pressured cloud customers to buy "multiple products". We don't know what this means, one theory holds that NVIDIA is getting them to commit to buying multiple generations of products (eg: Ampere, Hopper, and over to Blackwell); while another holds that it's getting them to buy multiple kinds of products, which include not just the AI GPUs, but also NVIDIA's first-party server systems and networking equipment. Yet another theory holds that it is bundle first-party software and services to go with the hardware, far beyond the basic software needed to get the hardware to work.Another aspects of the antitrust complaint holds that NVIDIA charges more for its data-center infrastructure products, specifically its networking equipment, if customers want to buy AI GPUs from NVIDIA's competitors—AMD and Intel. AMD's Instinct CDNA and Intel's Gaudi accelerators receive attention from cloud customers bit by pricing or long delivery timelines from NVIDIA, which holds 80% of the AI GPU market.

NVIDIA released a statement on this matter, where it assured full cooperation with the investigation. "We compete based on decades of investment and innovation, scrupulously adhering to all laws, making NVIDIA openly available in every cloud and on-prem for every enterprise, and ensuring that customers can choose whatever solution is best for them," an NVIDIA spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.