TECH NEWS – To everyone’s dismay, the French competition authority has raided Nvidia offices.

Nvidia offices in France have been raided by the country’s competition authority amid concerns about anti-competitive practices, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Nvidia’s offices in France were raided this week by agents of the country’s competition authority. At least according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The French authority did not mention the company by name. However, it has confirmed that it raided the company over concerns about anti-competitive practices in the graphics card industry.

According to WSJ sources, the French authorities specifically targeted Nvidia. Demand for the company’s chips has soared in recent months. Several companies, including Microsoft and OpenAI, have bought thousands of the company’s high-end AI chips, which are used to power large-scale language models.

This huge demand has resulted in much more money for Nvidia. The chipmaker reported record revenue of $13.51 billion in its latest report. This represents a 101 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. In May, Nvidia’s valuation briefly crossed the trillion-dollar mark due to the AI boom.

According to the WSJ, these types of raids happen early in the morning. Authorities “search a company’s premises, seize physical and digital materials and interview employees who arrive for work.” The French authorities claim that the raid was part of an increased control of cloud technology. On the latter subject, the agency published a market study in June.

According to a translation of the French agency’s press release, the dawn raids “do not pre-suppose the existence of a breach of the law,” which “only a full investigation” can establish. Nvidia declined to comment on the story. However, the raid may suggest that Nvidia’s dominance of the chipmaking market is not going unnoticed by global governments.

Source: The Wall Street Journal