On September 10, two sources with knowledge of the situation revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice is probing whether NVIDIA sought to sidestep antitrust oversight in order to seal a deal with AI chipmaker Groq last year. At the time, Groq characterized the agreement as a "non-exclusive licensing pact," granting NVIDIA the right to utilize its chips, which are specifically tailored for artificial intelligence applications. As a component of this agreement, Groq's CEO, Jonathan Ross, and COO, Sunny Madra, transitioned to NVIDIA. It's a common practice in the AI industry for companies to secure technology licenses and recruit key personnel from other firms through such agreements, without resorting to outright acquisitions. These types of arrangements generally circumvent the automatic government scrutiny that traditional mergers and acquisitions undergo, which is designed to assess whether the deal could potentially undermine market competition.