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The Decoder· Maximilian Schreiner·· 16 days ago

US antitrust regulators are scrutinizing Nvidia's Hugging Face deal and sales practices

US antitrust regulators are scrutinizing Nvidia's Hugging Face deal and sales practices

Brief overview

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating NVIDIA's planned acquisition of the open-source platform Hugging Face, with officials questioning whether the acquisition would allow NVIDIA to control a critical hub for AI distribution and harm competitors, with a transaction value of $12.93 billion and expected to be completed in the first half of 2027.

Same story2 other outlets also reported this

  1. 36Kr · AI··First

    U.S. Department of Justice investigates NVIDIA's acquisition of Hugging Face

    Adds:36Kr asks if the acquisition will let NVIDIA control a fundamental distribution channel in the AI field.

  2. The Decoder··+14 h 50 min·Reading now

    U.S. antitrust regulators are reviewing NVIDIA's acquisition of Hugging Face and its sales practices

    Adds:The Decoder mentions the transaction amount is 129.3 billion dollars and the completion is expected by the first half of 2027.

In order of publication · later reports are added as they appear · Compared by AI from each outlet’s title and summary

Article

The US Justice Department is looking into Nvidia's planned acquisition of open-source platform Hugging Face. According to two sources cited by Reuters, department officials are asking whether the purchase could give Nvidia control over a key hub for distributing AI and hurt its competitors. The deal is worth $12.93 billion, and Nvidia expects it to close in the first half of 2027. The company says Hugging Face will keep supporting partnerships with a range of chip, cloud, and AI providers.

At the same time, US antitrust regulators are investigating Nvidia's acquisitions, investments, sales practices, and possible pressure on customers. The probe started under Joe Biden and has continued under Donald Trump. According to the sources, officials have also looked at Nvidia's acquisitions of SchedMD and Run:ai, along with its licensing deal with Groq. They're also checking whether Nvidia offered customers more AI chips if they bought Nvidia networking gear and Groq processors too.

Nvidia faces scrutiny in Europe as well. France's competition authority is investigating the company over alleged anticompetitive business practices. The regulator is concerned about the industry's dependence on Nvidia's CUDA programming software and about Nvidia's stakes in cloud providers like CoreWeave. It pointed to possible risks such as supply restrictions, unfair contract terms, and discrimination against certain customers.

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Source: The Decoder · the-decoder.com