The US Department of Justice is conducting an antitrust investigation into US AI chip giant Nvidia Corp’s acquisition of Israeli AI infrastructure orchestration and management company Run:ai. The investigation in effect jeopardizes the completion of the $700 million acquisition, “Politico,” and “The Financial Times” report.
Tel Aviv-based Run:ai, which was founded in 2018 by CEO Omri Geller, Dr. Ronen Dar, and Prof. Meir Feder, has developed a system that allows Nvidia’s graphics processors to perform more operations and thus saves the need to purchase more of its processors. According to sources who spoke to “Politico”, the concern is that Nvidia acquired the Israeli company in order to “bury a technology that could curb its main profit engine.”
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The acquisition of Run.ai is just one of a number of practices for allegedly suppressing competition for which the US AI chip giant is being investigated, as is slowly being revealed by the US media.
Nvidia has become a monopoly in the AI processing market, with 90% of all advanced chips in the field. The US regulator is scrutinizing a number of claims related to the creation of an unfair competitive advantage by Nvidia – such as allegedly making access to its chips conditional on the purchase of other products, or a commitment not to purchase products from rivals.
According “Politico” the US probe into the AI market is split between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is examining Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI and the Department of Justice, which is investigating Nvidia’s business practices.
Also under investigation in both the US and Europe is Nvidia’s CUDA software, which is used to write applications for Nvidia’s GPUs. The French antitrust agency is concerned about the industry’s dependence on Nvidia’s CUDA chip programming software, the only one that is fully compatible with the GPUs that are essential for accelerated computing.
Nvidia told “Politico,” “Nvidia wins on merit, as reflected in our benchmark results and value to customers. We compete based on decades of investment and innovation, scrupulously adhering to all laws.”
If the Run:ai acquisition fails antitrust scrutiny and is canceled, it will be a blow for Nvidia’s development center in Israel – the US giant has bought two Israeli AI companies – Run.ai and Deci, which has developed an algorithm for compressing language models. Run:ai and Deci make Israel a major hub for software development for Nvidia outside the US, and canceling the acquisition of the larger of the two could harm that effort.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on August 2, 2024.
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