The European Commission unconditionally approved the acquisition of Israeli AI chip software company Run:ai by US chip manufacturer NVIDIA, according to Euractiv.
The commission began investigating the acquisition following a request from the Italian National Competition Authority on 30 September. However, the investigation was terminated, as the proposed acquisition “would not raise competition concerns on any of the markets examined in the EEA or in Italy,” according to a Commission press release.
NVIDIA dominates the AI value chain. The Commission assessed whether the company could “compromise the compatibility between its [AI chips] and the [AI chip] orchestration software of Run:ai’s competitors.”
Although neither company is based in the EU, the Commission still investigated the acquisition because it threatened “to significantly affect competition within the territory of the member state(s).”
NVIDIA will have neither the technical ability nor the incentive to hamper the compatibility of its GPUs with competing GPU orchestration software due to the availability and widespread use of tools that ensure such compatibility.
However, Run:ai’s competitors claimed that the Israeli company did not have a significant position in the chip orchestration software market. Therefore, consumers would still have access to “sufficient credible alternatives […] as well as the possibility of building their GPU orchestration software in-house.”
