DOJ Opens Antitrust Probe Into Nvidia's $20 Billion Groq Deal; Groq Asks to Be Investigated Further, Enjoying the Attention
The chip startup said it "had never been looked at so closely by anyone" and requested a second probe for the weekends.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice has opened an antitrust investigation into Nvidia's licensing agreement with the inference chip startup Groq, a deal reportedly valued at up to $20 billion, and Groq responded Tuesday with a statement expressing full cooperation and asking whether the department would "also like to look at the architecture, because it's really quite elegant."
"For six years we have been telling anyone who would listen that we have a fundamentally different approach to inference," the statement read. "Now the United States government is listening. We have prepared a deck."
The DOJ's inquiry centers on whether the deal, structured as a license rather than an acquisition, allows Nvidia to control a rival technology while avoiding merger review. Nvidia has said the arrangement is a standard commercial partnership. Groq has said it is "a standard commercial partnership, but also, have you seen our latency numbers?"
Sources familiar with the investigation said Groq has been unusually forthcoming, producing 40,000 documents in the first week, including several not requested, one of which was a whitepaper with a cover letter reading "You'll want to read this one."
Antitrust experts said the case could set a precedent for how regulators treat the wave of "acqui-license" deals through which large AI companies have absorbed smaller ones without formally buying them. "The question is whether this is a partnership or a takeover," said one former FTC official. "The other question is whether Groq's CEO can stop calling the case team."
Nvidia declined to comment beyond a statement noting that it "respects the process." Groq issued a follow-up statement noting that it also respects the process and that the process "has been great so far, honestly, really engaged."