미국 법무부가 Nvidia와 Groq의 거래를 조사하고 있으며, 대형 기술 기업들 사이의 잠재적 인수 채용 및 사실상의 합병에 대한 FTC의 정밀조사에 동참하고 있다.

The Department of Justice has sent a formal information request to Nvidia regarding its licensing agreement with Groq, according to reporting by the New York Times. The investigation commenced following the deal's disclosure in late December, with antitrust officials examining whether the chip giant sought to circumvent antitrust scrutiny.

Nvidia characterized the transaction as a "nonexclusive licensing agreement" through which Groq founder and then-CEO Jonathan Ross and several key members of the Groq team joined Nvidia. The reported $20 billion deal provided licensing rights for Groq's low-latency processors to be integrated into Nvidia's AI factory architecture.

Following the agreement, Nvidia introduced the Groq 3 language processing unit (LPU), which forms the foundation of the LPX rack-scale platform. Designed as a complementary offering for operators running Nvidia's flagship NVL72 processor, the LPX platform targets low-latency AI inference workloads and recently entered full production ahead of a planned launch later this year.

"The Groq story is a prime example of the American system working as designed to promote innovation, reward entrepreneurs, and benefit consumers," Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo told the Times. "The law is designed to encourage America's start-up ecosystem and promote the fundamental rights of inventors and workers to pursue their dreams."

The Groq investigation reflects broader regulatory concern. The Federal Trade Commission is examining whether major technology companies use acqui-hires to circumvent merger review processes. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson stated in February that the agency intends to ensure such deals "are not an attempt to get around" its merger review procedures.

Nvidia has faced antitrust scrutiny before, notably with its abandoned $40 billion attempt to acquire Arm in 2022. More recently, the company announced a $12.9 billion bid for Hugging Face, the open-source AI repository.

Despite regulatory attention, Groq continues expanding its team. Meta's former lead network engineer recently joined the company as head of network and data center engineering.