Open Markets Institute: European Commission will rue decision not to fully investigate NVIDIA's acquisition of Run:ai
BRUSSELS - The Open Markets Institute released the following statement regarding the European Commission’s decision not to intervene in Nvidia’s acquisition of Run:ai.
“We at Open Markets Institute deeply regret that the acquisition of Run:ai by Nvidia has received unconditional approval from the European Commission.
“Together with a group of civil society organizations, we expressed our concerns about the extreme and growing concentration of power in the AI technology stack in our submission on December 10 and requested that the Commission opens an in-depth investigation into the planned merger. We view this transaction as a means for Nvidia to reinforce its dominant position in the supply of advanced GPUs by integrating Run:ai software to build an additional barrier around its chip empire. The ensuing bottleneck poses a serious risk for the entire AI sector – weakening the supply chain and undermining Europe’s AI companies to remain competitive in global markets.
“Furthermore, the reliance on a single supplier for a critical technology will further undermine Europe’s resilience. The majority of the computation clusters in Europe are already fitted with Nvidia GPUs most efficient for large-scale training. Tackling the sustained and centralized materials dependencies underpinning the current AI ecosystem in Europe requires competition authorities to take a much more aggressive approach. Regulators must conduct in-depth investigations and use existing tools such as imposing structural remedies or prohibiting planned acquisitions.”
Open Markets Institute Europe Research Fellow Claire Lavin made the following comment:
“By approving Nvidia's takeover of Run:ai unconditionally, the Commission missed an opportunity to address the serious threats posed by the excessive concentration of power in computing equipment therefore leaving a dominant company free to reinforce its existing position to the detriment of competitors, customers and end-users.”
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