China launches antitrust investigation against Nvidia

The Chinese antitrust regulator SAMR (State Administration for Market Regulation) has launched an antitrust investigation against Nvidia. In a very brief statement, the authority accuses the chip manufacturer of having subsequently violated certain conditions in the takeover of network specialist Mellanox. The SAMR does not specify the nature of these violations.

Nvidia acquired the Israeli manufacturer of networking products, which primarily bring Ethernet and Infiniband to data centers, for seven billion US dollars in 2020. At the time, the Chinese authorities approved the transfer. Since then, Nvidia has also been integrating Mellanox solutions into its rack modules to network GPUs and AI accelerators.

The US news agency Reuters claims to have found out what is not to be found in the SAMR announcement. According to this, China is said to have banned bundle offers for Mellanox and Nvidia products in exchange for approval of the takeover, as well as discriminating against customers who only want devices from one of the two manufacturers.

Counterattack in the trade conflict with China

Neither SAMR nor Nvidia have yet commented on the antitrust investigations. However, US media assume that this is a reaction to the recently intensified trade conflict with China. As recently as November 2024, the USA banned the export of modern AI chips produced by chip contract manufacturer TSMC to China. Nvidia has been subject to trade restrictions with China since 2023. During the election campaign, US President-elect Donald Trump had already announced his intention to expand export restrictions on semiconductors and punitive tariffs on imports from China.

(nie)