Topline
France’s antitrust authority raided Nvidia’s French offices this week over suspicion the tech giant engaged in anticompetitive practices, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the raid who identified Nvidia as the raid’s subject despite the authority not disclosing what entity it targeted.
Nvidia is the leading producer of chip technology. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty … [+]
Key Facts
The French competition authority disclosed the raid Wednesday but did not share what business practice or company was being specifically investigated—though it did disclose the company was in the “graphics cards sector,” according to the Journal.
A judge approved the raid—an operation that followed up a larger inquiry into the cloud-computing sector conducted by the competition authority, which cited concerns that companies in the sector could use their computing resources to shut out other competitors, the Journal reported.
A June competition authority report says competition regulators will need to make sure larger players in the cloud technology sector don’t stymie the development of smaller competitors.
Nvidia declined to provide comment to Forbes.
Big Number
$1 trillion. That’s Nvidia’s market capitalization as of Thursday, a massive jump from the $369 billion market cap it boasted in January.
Tangent
Nvidia’s share price closed up more than 1% on Thursday, at $430.89. The company’s stock is up around 200% since the start of the year, when it was trading around $143 per share.
Key Background
Nvidia is the largest producer of chip technology used on game consoles, computers and generative AI. Other tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon are some of Nvidia’s biggest customers and have been for several years, with generative AI becoming one of the main reasons the companies purchase hardware from the chip maker. Nvidia shattered Wall Street expectations in its recent earnings report, raking in $13.5 billion in sales and $2.45 in earnings per share last quarter. Nvidia expects $16 billion in sales during the current quarter, according to its latest earnings report.
Further Reading
Nvidia’s French Offices Raided in Cloud-Computing Competition Inquiry (WSJ)
Nvidia Earnings: Stock Soars As AI Giant Again Smashes Quarterly Expectations (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/09/28/nvidias-french-offices-raided-over-antitrust-concerns-report-says/