UK Government to Intervene on NVIDIA’s Proposed Acquisition of Arm over National Security Grounds

[Tsing]

Image: NVIDIA



NVIDIA’s proposed acquisition of British semiconductor and software design darling Arm Ltd. has hit a potential speed bump, as the UK government announced today that it’d be intervening in the sale on national security grounds. The Competition and Markets Authority, UK’s competition regulator, is already preparing a report on the “competition and national security aspects of the proposed transaction,” which will presumably contain arguments as to why NVIDIA’s acquisition of Arm is bad for the country and/or overall industry. NVIDIA announced that it had entered into an agreement to purchase Arm Ltd. from SoftBank Group on September 13, 2020 in a deal valued at approximately $40 billion...

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[Zarathustra]

That's an interesting development!

I'm surprised no one else has taken issue with this yet. Having Nvidia own ARM is a real threat to several industries!

 

[Brian_B]

I'm surprised no one else has taken issue with this yet.

Plenty of people are taking issue. It's regulators that haven't said a lot yet - but it's still a bit early. The buyout isn't expected to finalize until mid-2022.

Not sure if the US would have much grounds to interfere - you have AMD in almost exactly the same dual role, providing GPUs and CPUs, and Intel pushing to go that way (or already there if you consider IGP...), so I can't really see any anti-trust grounds the US could push back on.

Although that's all on the surface. nVidia owning ARM gives them enormous market leverage, since ARM is used in ... almost everything that isn't a server / desktop / laptop - and it's even starting to muscle into there. I have absolute faith in nVidia to screw this up, mostly likely by trying to force proprietary crap down everyone's throats in a market that has thrived specifically because it was open.

UK with their national interest/security angle is one I didn't expect, particularly since ARM doesn't actually manufacture anything - they just license tech.

 

[Zarathustra]

Plenty of people are taking issue. It's regulators that haven't said a lot yet - but it's still a bit early. The buyout isn't expected to finalize until mid-2022.

Not sure if the US would have much grounds to interfere - you have AMD in almost exactly the same dual role, providing GPUs and CPUs, and Intel pushing to go that way (or already there if you consider IGP...), so I can't really see any anti-trust grounds the US could push back on.

Although that's all on the surface. nVidia owning ARM gives them enormous market leverage, since ARM is used in ... almost everything that isn't a server / desktop / laptop - and it's even starting to muscle into there. I have absolute faith in nVidia to screw this up, mostly likely by trying to force proprietary crap down everyone's throats in a market that has thrived specifically because it was open.

UK with their national interest/security angle is one I didn't expect, particularly since ARM doesn't actually manufacture anything - they just license tech.

I don't think CPU/GPU in the same company is an inherent problem, unless they start locking them so they only work together (which honestly Intel already has, and I wouldn't put above Nvidia.)

I think the biggest concern is that Nvidia competes with companies who license ARM tech. Nvidia has been really ****ty over the years trying to lock in, lock out, and use whatever manipulative little tricks they can to limit what customers can and cannot do. I wouldn't be surprised if they keep the best of ARM for themselves, license only older or less capable ARM designs to competitors and use that to crush the competition.

Owning ARM is just too much of a position of power for a company with a long long track record of abusing power.