U.S. regulators to open antitrust probes into Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI
Summary
The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department are set to open antitrust investigations into Microsoft , OpenAI and Nvidia , examining the powerful companies influence on the artificial intelligence industry, a source familiar confirmed to CNBC. The hefty investments are necessary because AI models are notoriously expensive to build and train, requiring thousands of specialized chips that, to date, have largely come from Nvidia. Meta , which is developing its own model called Llama, has said its spending billions on Nvidias graphics processing units, one of the many companies thats helped the chipmaker bolster year-over-year revenue by more than 250%. The news also follows the FTCs January decision to conduct an extensive study on AI industry heavyweights, including Amazon , Alphabet , Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI. By invoking its authority to conduct a so-called 6(b) study — named for Section 6(b) of the FTC Act — the regulator can look into the AI companies separately from its law enforcement arm and make civil investigative demands.
