Warren questions US agencies on Nvidia supercomputer deal
Senator Warren asked the Energy and Defense departments to assess risks from Nvidia's SchedMD deal. She warned that the deal could harm national security.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has formally requested information from the United States Department of Energy and Department of Defense regarding the acquisition of SchedMD by NVIDIA CORP. The deal, which was completed in December for an undisclosed sum, involves the developer of Slurm, an open-source workload manager that powers approximately 60% of the world's supercomputers. In a letter addressed to Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Warren expressed concerns that the acquisition could lead to a dangerous dependency on Nvidia’s proprietary ecosystem. The Slurm software is a critical component for government systems used in ballistic missile simulations, nuclear weapons development, and the training of large-scale artificial intelligence models. > NVIDIA’s acquisition of Slurm turns a once free software into one of NVIDIA’s proprietary offerings, which may reduce competition and harm national security, Warren wrote. The Senator questioned whether federal departments have conducted formal assessments of the national security risks associated with the merger. She argued that the acquisition follows a strategic pattern where Nvidia targets technology that serves as the essential infrastructure connecting hardware and software in high-performance computing environments. > This would give NVIDIA disproportionate control over a chokepoint that rival firms rely on to operate government supercomputers. In response to the inquiry, Nvidia maintained that its involvement would benefit the broader computing community. The company stated that Slurm remains open-source and that they continue to provide enhancements for all users. However, industry insiders have expressed mixed reactions, with some fearing the company might prioritize its own hardware while others hope Nvidia's resources will modernize the aging Slurm infrastructure. Warren also highlighted previous acquisitions, such as Bright Computing in 2022 and Run:ai in 2024, as evidence of increasing market consolidation. She suggested that controlling multiple layers of the technology stack allows the firm to potentially marginalize competitors. > If NVIDIA controls both AI chips and the software layers that make these chips work, they are in a position to box out competitors by making their hardware harder to deploy and harder to support, Warren said.
