The US Department of Justice is continuing to investigate chip giant Nvidia over potential antitrust violations and has sent out subpoenas to Nvidia and third-party firms as part of its ongoing probe, Bloomberg reports Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The DOJ had previously sent questionnaires to the firms. But its subpoenas take matters a step further because they are legal written orders that compel recipients to provide additional information. The department has been investigating Nvidia since at least as early as June, and is looking into whether or to what extent Nvidia may be making it difficult for buyers to switch to its competitors. The DOJ’s San Francisco office is leading the investigation, according to the report.
Last month, reports suggested the DOJ is also investigating Nvidia over its acquisition of RunAI, an Israeli startup it purchased earlier this year for $700 million. In response to inquiries about the federal investigation, Nvidia has repeatedly said that it “wins on merit.”
“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,” the company previously told PCMag in a statement. “We’ll continue to support aspiring innovators in every industry and market and are happy to provide any information regulators need.”
French authorities are also investigating Nvidia over possible anticompetition concerns, with its regulator noting in July that it would press charges if its investigation was “fruitful.”
Nvidia has a market capitalization of $2.65 trillion at time of writing, making it the third-largest company by market cap after Apple and Microsoft. But on Tuesday, Nvidia’s stock fell over 9.5%. This fall meant it lost $278.9 billion in value in just one day, making it the biggest single-day loss experienced by a US company, Business Insider reports.
Some analysts believe this decline may be due to broader economic factors, as well as growing investor concerns around the high costs of AI. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, however, has previously called the costs of generative AI “negligible,” and has argued that every country in the world should develop its own “sovereign AI.”
