Nvidia’s deal with Groq is back in the spotlight amid reports that the Department of Justice (DOJ) could look into the deal.
The New York Times reports that DOJ officials have sent a formal request for information to Nvidia regarding the deal. An investigation commenced following its disclosure in late December, with antitrust officials reportedly looking into whether the chip giant sought to skirt an antitrust probe.
Nvidia billed the deal as a “nonexclusive licensing agreement” that saw Groq founder and then CEO Jonathan Ross jump across to Nvidia, along with several key members of the Groq team.
Exact terms were not disclosed, though a reported $20 billion was spent on the apparent licensing deal providing the green light for Groq’s low-latency processors to be integrated into Nvidia’s so-called AI factory architecture.
Nvidia quickly went on to debut the Groq 3 language processing unit (LPU), which forms the basis of the LPX rack-scale platform designed as a complementary add-on for operators running Nvidia's flagship NVL72 to want power low-latency AI inference workloads. The platform recently entered full production ahead of an anticipated launch later this year.
*"*The Groq story is a prime example of the American system working as designed to promote innovation, reward entrepreneurs, and benefit consumers," Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo told the Times. “The law is designed to encourage America’s start-up ecosystem and promote the fundamental rights of inventors and workers to pursue their dreams.”
Nvidia has previously fallen foul of antitrust regulators with its $40 billion attempt to buy Arm in 2022. One Nvidia deal that will face the wrath of the regulator will be its recently announced $12.9 billion bid for open source AI repository monolith Hugging Face.
The GRoq probe comes amid a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) examination into big tech’s love for acqui-hires. Chairman Andrew Ferguson told Bloomberg in February that it wants to ensure such deals “are not an attempt to get around” its merger review process.
Nvidia’s Groq ransack hasn’t stopped the startup from pressing on, with Meta’s former lead network engineer recently joining as head of network and data center engineering.