The new subpoenas are an escalation beyond the questionnaires the Justice Department previously sent to Nvidia, according to Bloomberg.

Nvidia has reportedly received legally binding requests for information from the United States as part of the Department of Justice’s investigation into whether the semiconductor vendor broke antirust rules as part of its domination over the artificial intelligence processor market.

The new subpoenas are an escalation beyond the questionnaires the Justice Department previously sent to Nvidia, according to Bloomberg. The U.S. is closer to launching a formal complaint against the Santa Clara, Calif.-based vendor.

Investigators are looking at whether Nvidia makes supplier switching difficult for customers, whether it penalizes them for not exclusively using Nvidia AI chips and the acquisition of AI computing software company RunAI, according to Bloomberg. The Justice Department’s San Francisco office has taken the lead on the inquiry.

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Nvidia Antitrust Investigation

CRN has reached out to Nvidia and the Justice Department for comment.

The U.S. and European Union have scrutinized multiple tech vendors for alleged anti-competitive behaviors as well as unusual deals made with AI upstarts as business demand for the emerging technology grows.

Google was recently ruled a monopoly for its practices in the online ads market.

In January, the FTC announced that Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, Google parent Alphabet and Anthropic needed to provide information on their recent investments and partnerships. In July, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a letter saying that it can “begin an investigation” into an unusual deal between Microsoft and AI upstart Inflection that resulted in Microsoft hiring Inflection’s co-founder and CEO.

U.S. antitrust cases against Amazon and Apple are also still on the horizon.