China’s market regulator said on Monday that American chip manufacturer NVIDIA violated its antitrust laws. A report from the Associated Press claims NVIDIA, a leading global provider of artificial intelligence chips, failed to comply with regulations following its acquisition of Israeli-American tech supplier Mellanox Technologies Ltd. in 2020. While China says the deal was initially approved, it claims NVIDIA had “violated commitments the company made during the deal to prevent anti-competitive practices and ensure supplies to China.”
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announced the violations amid U.S.-China trade talks in Madrid, Spain. A machine translation of the statement reads:
“Recently, after preliminary investigation, NVIDIA was found to have violated the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Announcement of the State Administration for Market Regulation on the Anti-Monopoly Review Decision on Approving NVIDIA’s Acquisition of Equity in Mellanox Technologies Co., Ltd. with Additional Restrictive Conditions. The State Administration for Market Regulation decided to conduct further investigation into it in accordance with the law.”
Beijing said it would continue its NVIDIA probe, which first began in December 2024 following the latter’s nearly $7 billion Mellanox acquisition.
US-China Tech Tensions
Monday’s statement regarding Santa Clara, Calif.-based NVIDIA compounds existing tech tariff tensions between the U.S. and China.
Over the weekend, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it would begin two additional investigations — one, an antidumping inquiry into chips imported from the U.S.; the other, an “anti-discrimination scrutiny of U.S. restrictions on China’s chip industry,” according to CNBC. These probes follow the U.S.’ decision to add nearly two dozen China-based companies to its entity list, which Bloomberg says “imposes restrictions on businesses deemed to be ‘acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US.’”
“Dumping” is a predatory pricing practice wherein a country sells a product to a foreign market below its home market value. Countries that engage in dumping can unfairly quash competition and lead to market share dominion.
The probe will specifically explore analogue integrated circuit (IC) chips, for which the Jiangsu Provincial Semiconductor Industry Association said prices had “continuously and significantly declined” throughout last year. U.S. companies reportedly affected include prominent calculator manufacturer Texas Instruments as well as Analog Devices (ADI), Broadcom, and ON Semiconductor.
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