Technology competition is an inherently global phenomenon. American antitrust enforcers repeatedly ignore this reality as they seek to punish the country’s best companies for even pro-competitive market activity. At the same time, adversarial nations like China pour money and resources into their stake in the semiconductor supply chain.
The Justice Department recently opened an investigation into Nvidia, a leading American multinational technology company and chip manufacturer.
In recent years, Nvidia has exploded onto the world stage as its Graphics Processing Units — designed for video game graphics — have proven to be an instrumental component of the next generation of AI technology. This is because of their ability to perform more calculations simultaneously than other chips, allowing increased efficiency. Unsurprisingly, demand for these chips grows as the AI revolution sweeps the planet.
Where there is success in the market, regulators often suspect foul play.
As part of the wave of antitrust scrutiny of big technology companies, Justice recently launched two probes into Nvidia for supposed antitrust violations. The first revolves around its acquisition of Israeli startup Run:ai, and the second revolves around whether it used its market position to discourage consumers from buying chips from competitors.
Already dealing with overbearing antitrust regulators in the United States, Nvidia is also contending with overzealous regulators overseas. Last year, France’s competition authority raided Nvidia’s French offices as part of a larger antitrust investigation. More recently, China launched a probe into the company’s business practices and acquisition of the Israeli-American semiconductor company Mellanox Technologies.
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Trey Price is a policy analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit us at www.TheAmericanConsumer.Org or follow us on X @ConsumerPal.