The US government is right to investigate Nvidia for alleged unfair practices | Max von Thun

Competition authorities were too slow to stop tech giants from dominating Web 2.0. They can’t repeat that mistake with AI

When a company triples in value in just a few months, as computer chip company Nvidia has, investors take notice. But regulators do too, because they know from experience how monopolies engage in illegal anti-competitive behavior that squashes competitors and manipulates the market to expand their dominance. The US Department of Justice (as well as other competition authorities and tech observers) suspects Nvidia has used such tactics to entrench its chips monopoly, and last month it was reported that the Department of Justice was opening an antitrust investigation. It’s high time.

Before the pandemic, few beyond video game enthusiasts – whose top-of-the-line gaming computers and consoles are built on high-capacity Nvidia chips – had ever heard of the company. But thanks to the generative AI boom, Nvidia has become one of the fastest-growing companies ever, and its chips have powered every important AI milestone – including OpenAI’s development of ChatGPT, which holds two-thirds of the AI business tools market.

Max von Thun is the director of Europe and transatlantic partnerships at the Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly thinktank