The State Administration for Market Regulation in China has opened an investigation into Nvidia, alleging anti-monopoly violations in the $6.9 billion acquisition of Mellanox Technologies in 2020.
Nvidia announced its intent to buy the Israeli network products supplier in 2019 and acquired it in 2020 with approval from the US, EU, and Chinese antitrust authorities. China had approved the deal on the condition Nvidia would not discriminate against Chinese companies.
As reported by Bloomberg, China had mandated information about new products from Mellanox 90 days after they had been made available to Nvidia.
The US has imposed export bans on over 140 Chinese companies for components like GPUs, lithography machines, and CPU design software. In response, the Chinese government banned Apple iPhones in government agencies and then banned AMD and Intel chips in government-run servers.
Earlier this month, China responded to more US sanctions by banning exports of key materials required in microchip production to the US.
A Nvidia spokesperson told Bloomberg it would be "happy to answer any questions regulators may have about our business." The spokesperson stated that Nvidia works hard "to provide the best products we can in every region and honor our commitments everywhere we do business."
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