Nvidia’s French offices raided in cloud-computing competition inquiry – WSJ

(Reuters) -France’s competition authority raided Nvidia (NASDAQ:)’s local offices this week on suspicion the chipmaker engaged in anticompetitive practices, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The French competition authority, which disclosed the dawn raid on Wednesday, did not say what practices it was investigating or which company it had targeted, beyond saying it was in the “graphics cards sector,” the report said.

The Journal also reported that the French authority said that its operation this week followed a broader inquiry into the cloud-computing sector, in which it cited concerns that cloud-computing companies could use their access to computing power to exclude smaller competitors.

The operation had targeted Nvidia, which is the world’s largest maker of chips used both for artificial intelligence and for computer graphics, the report added, citing people familiar with the raid.

Nvidia declined to comment, while the French competition authority did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.