CUDA is a proprietary platform that (officially) only runs on Nvidia cards, so making projects that use CUDA run on non-Nvidia hardware is not trivial.

I don’t think the consumer-facing stuff can be called a monopoly per se, but Nvidia can easily force proprietary features onto the market (G-Sync before they adapted VESA Adaptive-Sync, DLSS etc.) because they have such a large market share.

Assume a scenario where Nvidia has 90% market share and Nvidia cards would still only support adaptive sync via their proprietary G-Sync solution. Display manufacturers will obviously want to tailor to the market, so most displays will release with support for G-Sync instead of VESA Adaptive-Sync. 9 out of 10 customers will likely buy a G-Sync display as they have Nvidia cards. Now everyone has a monitor supporting some form of adaptive sync. AMD and Nvidia release their new GPU generation and isolated (in this hypothetical scenario), AMD cards are 10% cheaper for the same performance and efficiency as their Nvidia counterparts. The problem for AMD here is that even though per $ they have the better cards, 9 out of 10 people would need new displays to get adaptive sync working with an AMD card (because their current display only supports the proprietary G-Sync), and AMD can’t possibly undercut Nvidia by so much that the customer can also buy a new display for the price difference. This results in 9 out of 10 customers going for Nvidia again.

To be fair to Nvidia, most of their proprietary features are somewhat innovative. When G-Sync first came out, VESA Adaptive-Sync wasn’t really a thing yet. DLSS was way better than any other upscaler in existence when it released and it required hardware that only Nvidia had.

But with CUDA, it’s a big problem. Entire software projects that just won’t (officially) run on non-Nvidia hardware so Nvidia is able to charge whatever they want (unless what they’re charging is more than the cost of switching to competitor products and importantly porting over the affected software projects).

the chinese government is an absolute hypocrite here once again

Going tit-for-tat with the US on investigations of rival tech companies isn’t hypocritical, its retaliatory. This is a strategic response to an escalating tech sector trade war.

Nvidia is probably the defacto monopoly corporation that deserves an anti trust probe the least because competition isn’t even trying

NVIDIA has acquired 23 different companies in the last 5 years. Six in 2024 alone. Back in 2020, they straight up bought out ARM for $40B, eliminating an enormous chunk of their domestic competition. This was a strategic prelude to cornering the manufacturing of AI-centric hardware.

These mergers never should have been allowed to take place. They’ve squashed anything resembling competitive pricing and created a choke point in distribution that the bigger tech companies have exploited to crowd out competitors in the nascent AI industrial space. In a sane world, an anti-trust claim would be open-and-shut. NVIDIA is caught red-handed in the act. They’re straight up bragging about it to their investors. Its the singular reason for their skyrocketing stock price.

The only incentive rivals have, at this point, is to get large enough for a company like NVIDIA to buy you out. There is no competition because the market has already been cornered.