NVIDIA Corporation(NVDA.US) acquires Israeli company Run:ai, approved unconditionally by the European Union.

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) has received unconditional approval from the European Union for its acquisition of Israel-based startup Run:ai, which primarily develops software for managing artificial intelligence computing resources. The European Commission stated in a press release on Friday that despite NVIDIA Corporation being a "leading producer of key hardware for AI applications in the EU and other regions", this acquisition does not pose any competitive threat to the 27 member states of the EU. EU's new Antitrust Commissioner Teresa Ribera stated in the release, "Our market investigation has confirmed that other software options compatible with NVIDIA Corporation's hardware will continue to be available in the market." Run:ai announced the acquisition in April, stating that the California-based chip manufacturer was founded in 2018 by Omri Geller and Ronen Dar, and has been a close partner of NVIDIA Corporation since 2020. The company did not disclose the specific terms of the deal, but Israeli newspaper "Calcalist" estimated the transaction value to be $700 million. NVIDIA Corporation's previous significant deal in Israel was its $7 billion acquisition of Mellanox Technologies Ltd. in 2020. NVIDIA Corporation's dominant position in the AI chip market has attracted close attention both domestically and internationally. While companies like Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US) are working to loosen NVIDIA Corporation's control over the market, there is still high demand for these chips, with prices reaching tens of thousands of dollars per chip and supply unable to meet the demand. The EU merger regulators conducted the investigation at the behest of the Italian Competition Authority. The Italian Competition Authority has special powers that allow the EU to investigate mergers (including tech transactions) that do not meet the revenue thresholds required for EU review. The recent ruling by the EU Court of Justice in the case of Illumina Inc.'s $7 billion acquisition of cancer detection provider Grail Inc. has limited these powers. The judges stated that the EU merger regulators illegally encouraged national regulators to request investigations into transactions that normally fall below the EU review threshold. The system is only allowed to be used when a national regulator requests an EU-level review of a transaction that they already have jurisdiction over. The EU Court of Justice's ruling in September has hindered the EU's ability to investigate other potentially problematic transactions, such as Microsoft Corporation's (MSFT.US) investment in Inflection AI.