EU, Chinese, French regulators seeking info on graphic cards, Nvidia says -November 24, 2023 at 10:15 am EST

BRUSSELS, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Regulators in the European
Union, China and France have asked for information on Nvidia’s
graphic cards, with more requests expected in the
future, the U.S. chip giant said in a regulatory filing.

Nvidia is the world’s largest maker of chips used both for
artificial intelligence and for computer graphics. Demand for
its chips jumped following the release of the generative AI
application ChatGPT late last year.

The California-based company has a market share of around
80% via its chips and other hardware and its powerful software
that runs them.

Its graphics cards (GPUs) are high-performance devices that
enable powerful graphics rendering and processing for use in
video editing, video gaming and other complex computing
operations.

The company said this has attracted regulatory interest
around the world.

“For example, the French Competition Authority collected
information from us regarding our business and competition in
the graphics card and cloud service provider market as part of
an ongoing inquiry into competition in those markets,” Nvidia
said in a regulatory filing dated Nov. 21.

The French watchdog raided Nvidia’s local office in
September, a person familiar with the matter had told Reuters.

“We have also received requests for information from
regulators in the European Union and China regarding our sales
of GPUs and our efforts to allocate supply, and we expect to
receive additional requests for information in the future,”
Nvidia said in the filing.

Separately, Nvidia has delayed the launch of a new
China-focused AI chip, two sources familiar with the matter told
Reuters.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Susan Fenton)