DOJ probes Nvidia's licensing deal with AI startup Groq, NYT reports

JUST IN: The US Justice Department is probing Nvidia's licensing deal with AI chip startup Groq, according to the New York Times.

The Justice Department is investigating Nvidia. That's according to the New York Times, and the target is Nvidia's licensing deal with Groq, the AI chip startup that's been pitching itself as the fast, cheap alternative for running AI models.

Here's why that combination raises eyebrows. Nvidia owns the AI chip market, somewhere north of ninety percent of it, and Groq is one of the few young companies actually built to take a bite out of that. So when the giant signs a licensing arrangement with the challenger, antitrust lawyers start asking whether that's a partnership or a leash.

Jensen Huang has spent two years as the most untouchable man in tech, and you can see the Washington headquarters where that status is now being tested. Nvidia's been through regulatory scrapes before and walked away fine.

But a DOJ probe into how the most valuable chipmaker on earth handles its rivals, that's not a scrape. That's the opening move.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.