DOJ opens antitrust probe into Nvidia's $20 billion Groq acquihire

The US Department of Justice has launched an antitrust probe into Nvidia's $20 billion deal with Groq, according to a New York Times report cited by The Register. Late last year Nvidia paid that sum to license Groq's AI accelerator technology and hire away key members of its engineering team. The structure technically left Groq's core inference-as-a-service business intact, which The Register says was clearly designed to keep the transaction below the threshold of regulatory review. It did not stay below the radar. Nvidia defends the arrangement, describing it as a great American success story. The Register's systems editor Tobias Mann argues the substance was an acquisition in all but name, since without its engineering staff Groq is effectively dependent on Nvidia. He also contends the probe arrives too late to matter: even if regulators somehow unwound the deal, a growing list of alternative inference chip suppliers stands ready to take Groq's place without any merger. The case matters as a test of whether licence-and-hire structures can substitute for mergers while avoiding review, at a moment when Nvidia is also reported to be negotiating a large anchor stake in Anthropic's IPO. No timeline for the DOJ investigation was given in the report.