China has launched an antitrust investigation into Nvidia over possible violations of the country's anti-monopoly laws in connection with its 2020 acquisition of Israeli chip maker Mellanox Technologies. A Bloomberg report (via The Verge) says the Chinese government approved the $7 billion deal on the condition that Nvidia not discriminate against Chinese companies, and that Mellanox provide samples of new products to competing companies within 90 days of making them available to Nvidia to ensure they can maintain performance parity.
Details about the investigation weren't shared, but it's notable because of US sanctions that restrict Nvidia's ability to export products to China. Nvidia has attempted to get around those restrictions by designing certain products specifically for the Chinese market: When the US Department of Commerce introduced restrictions on RTX 4090 GPUs in 2023, for instance, Nvidia quickly whipped up the RTX 4090 D, an export-only model built exclusively for China that was designed to get around export controls.
