The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly reviewing a licensing agreement between NVIDIA and AI chip company Groq to determine if NVIDIA deliberately structured the deal as a licensing agreement to circumvent standard government scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions, according to The New York Times. The investigation began shortly after the agreement was announced last December, and the DOJ has issued a formal information disclosure request to NVIDIA. A central point of contention in the agreement is that two Groq executives joined NVIDIA after the deal was finalized. Regulators are increasingly wary of "disguised mergers" in the AI industry, where companies achieve de facto acquisitions by licensing technology and recruiting executives, thereby bypassing traditional review mechanisms.