Nvidia received an unexpected visit from the French market regulator. The raid is part of a broader investigation into anti-competitive practices in the cloud sector.

The French Authority of competition announces with a short message on its website that it has carried out a raid against a company active in the graphics card sector. At the end of June, the market dog announced that it would initiate a comprehensive investigation into the cloud industry. There is a suspicion that the major parties are using their dominant market position to exclude small players. The raid was carried out with the approval of a responsible judge.

Of course, names will not be mentioned as this is an ongoing investigation. But anyone who puts the puzzle pieces together quickly ends up with Nvidia, and the Wall Street Journal also comes to the same conclusion. Due to the current hype around generative AI, Nvidia has become a central plaything in the cloud industry. Today the company sells GPUs like hot cakes for hundreds of thousands of euros each. Nvidia itself does not want to say anything about participation in research.

At the moment it remains to be seen which companies the French authority is still monitoring. It is not surprising that France is at war with the major cloud providers. The French cloud provider OHV went to court against Microsoft in 2021 because it felt it had been treated unfairly, but was ultimately persuaded to reach an amicable settlement. The French market supervisory authority does not seem to be satisfied with this.