NVIDIA, a graphics chip maker and recent backbone of the artificial intelligence industry, is being investigated by Chinese regulators for possible antitrust violations. <a target="_blank" data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1" class="link " href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/technology/china-nvidia-investigation-antitrust-ai.html” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:The New York Times reports;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>. Concerns center on acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, a computer networking company .
As part of the conditions of that acquisition, Chinese regulators required NVIDIA to “provide information about new products (Mellanox) to its rivals within 90 days of them being made available to NVIDIA.” . China's State Administration for Market Regulation is launching its investigation because it believes those terms were violated. This wouldn't be the first time NVIDIA has been investigated for monopolistic behavior (the US Department of Justice reportedly launched NVIDIA in September 2024), but it has a different tone in the context of the escalating trade war between the US and China.
On December 1, the US Department of Commerce announced restrictions and sanctions on exports of 140 Chinese companies that produce chip-making tools and “shipments of high-bandwidth memory chips destined for China.” <a target="_blank" data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1" class="link " href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/latest-us-strike-chinas-chips-hits-semiconductor-toolmakers-2024-12-02/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:Reuters writes;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>. The goal was pretty clear: The United States wanted to limit China's ability to develop advanced ai by preventing it from creating the type of chips used to train and run it. This fight goes both ways, of course. It seems safe to say that the In all shipments of gallium, germanium and antimony to the United States there was a response.
Threatening NVIDIA makes sense on some fronts. The company's H100 GPUs were used to train the vast majority of generative ai models in use today, something that doesn't seem likely to change with Blackwell chips. He did that <a target="_blank" data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:8;pos:1" class="link " href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/technology/nvidia-most-valuable-company.html” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:one of the most valuable companies in the world;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:8;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”> as speculation about ai has become rampant and is a major target for government oversight. Further, Bloomberg He writes that NVIDIA gets about 15 percent of its revenue from China. Regardless of how the investigation is resolved, NVIDIA seems like the next logical step to further escalate the conflict between the United States and China.
