Nvidia’s offices in France were raided by the country’s competition authority this week. according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. While the French agency does not mention Nvidia by name, is confirmed conducted a raid over concerns about anti-competitive practices in the graphics card industry.
Sources tell WSJ that French authorities specifically targeted Nvidia, which has seen demand for its chips skyrocket in recent months. Several companies, including Microsoft and Open AIhave purchased thousands of the company’s high-end AI chips to power large language models.
According to the WSJ, these types of raids occur early in the morning and cause authorities to “search a company’s facilities, seize physical and digital materials, and interview employees who arrive for work.” The French authority says it carried out the raid as part of its increased scrutiny of cloud technology, an issue the agency published a market study in June.
A machine-translated version of the French agency’s press release says that the raids “do not presuppose the existence of a violation of the law,” something that “only a full investigation” can establish. Nvidia declined to comment on the story. However, a raid could suggest that Nvidia’s reign in the chip manufacturing market is not going unnoticed by global governments.
