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

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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