France's competition authority raided the local offices of Nvidia this week on suspicion of anti-competitive practices, the first major regulatory scrutiny Nvidia has faced since its rise to become the most important supplier of artificial intelligence chips.
France's competition authority, which disclosed the raids on Wednesday, did not say what conduct it was investigating or which company it was targeting, other than a company in the graphics card sector. But people familiar with the matter said the target of the raid was Nvidia, the world's largest maker of artificial intelligence and computer graphics chips.
The raids often last several hours, with officials showing up early in the morning to search company premises, seize physical and digital data and question employees on duty. The French agency said the raids were approved by a judge.
The French agency said this week's action followed a broader investigation into the cloud computing industry, citing concerns that cloud companies were using their computing power to exclude smaller rivals.
A spokesman for the French agency declined to comment on the companies targeted in Tuesday's raids. French business magazine Challenges earlier reported that Nvidia was the target of the raid.
Nvidia declined to comment.