By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-12-16 23:01:35 | Updated at 2024-12-17 02:39:39
3 hours ago
China’s decision to launch an antitrust probe into US semiconductor giant Nvidia over a US$6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli networking products and solutions provider Mellanox Technologies, which it approved five years ago, is raising questions about the message Beijing wants to send and what results it is trying to achieve.
The high-profile probe could be read as a warning shot at Nvidia rather than a punishment. The national foreign ministry, for instance, has not been shy about putting US businesses considered hostile to China on a sanctions list, ordering Chinese individuals and businesses to sever ties to sanctioned companies and denying visas to executives from the targeted businesses. Infractions include crossing China’s “red lines” such as selling weapons to Taiwan.
Nvidia’s situation is less serious than what Micron faced last year. In May 2023, the US memory chip maker had to cope with allegations from the Cyberspace Administration of China that its products presented “national security” risks, and China’s key information infrastructure operators were ordered to stop buying from Micron.
The likely worst case scenario for Nvidia, a fabless chip designer that still has business in China, is paying a fine to the national market regulator for “rectification”, similar to what Qualcomm went through in 2015.
The National Development Reform Commission (NDRC) – China’s antitrust authority before the role was given to the State Administration for Market Regulation – fined Qualcomm 6.1 billion yuan, or about US$1 billion at the time, after a year-long probe into the dominant mobile chip designer over allegations that it abused its market power. A decade later, China remains Qualcomm’s largest market.
The Post reported that Nvidia could be fined up to US$1 billion if it is found to have violated the Anti-Monopoly Law, an amount that one of the three most valuable companies in the world could easily bear. In such an outcome, it would be business as usual for Nvidia in China.
However, Beijing’s choice of timing is interesting. It comes as the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden continues to escalate the chip war by tightening export restrictions.
