French antitrust authorities had an unannounced raid on Nvidia's local offices as the company is "suspected of having implemented anticompetitive practices in the graphics card sector."
The U.S. government has ordered Nvidia to stop sales of its artificial intelligence chips in China, which could affect its $400 million sales forecasts in the fourth quarter, the company's regulatory filing showed.
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Nvidia Allegedly Conducts Anticompetitive Practices
Nvidia currently tops the world market as the largest producer of chips that are both used for developing artificial intelligence and computer graphics.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, most of the raids conducted are usually during early in the morning and would take long hours. The team would search around company's premises, seize physical and digital materials, and even interview employees.
The French authority confirmed that the raid has been approved by a judge. Nvidia has been under investigation after French authorities raised concerns that cloud-computing companies have the power to exclude smaller competitors. Nvidia decline to provide any comment.
Rise of AI Becomes Beneficial to Nvidia
The surge of generative AI systems from various companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet's Google, and more have increased the demand for Nvidia's chips. In fact, the company experienced a shortage due to the large volume of demand for their chips.
Currently, Nvidia is at $3 trillion valuation last June. Citi analysts are also predicting that the Nvidia would have a more powerful market share for AI chips moving forward. French authorities are now looking into companies and is working to ensure that established companies will not hinder the development of new companies.
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