Tuesday, February 8, 2022

NVIDIA and SoftBank terminate Arm acquisition

NVIDIA and SoftBank cancelled the acquisition of Arm Limited by NVIDIA. The companies cited significant regulatory challenges.

SoftBank said it now plans a public listing of Arm Limited within the fiscal year ending in March 2023.

“Arm is becoming a center of innovation not only in the mobile phone revolution, but also in cloud computing, automotive, the Internet of Things and the metaverse, and has entered its second growth phase,” said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group Corp. “We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress.”

“Arm has a bright future, and we’ll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come,” said Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. “Arm is at the center of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”

Citing competition concerns, FTC moves to block NVIDIA + ARM

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the $40 billion proposed acquisition of Arm Ltd. by Nvidia Corp.The FTC vote was 4-0.The FTC complaint states that the acquisition will harm competition in three worldwide markets in which Nvidia competes using Arm-based products:High-Level Advanced Driver Assistance Systems for passenger cars. These systems offer computer-assisted driving functions, such as automated lane changing, lane keeping,...

NVIDIA to acquire ARM for $40 billion

 In a deal that will redefine the semiconductor market, NVIDIA agreed to acquire Arm Limited from Softbank for $40 billion. Under the deal, NVIDIA will pay to SoftBank a total of $21.5 billion in NVIDIA common stock and $12 billion in cash. NVIDIA will also issue $1.5 billion in equity to Arm employees. The deal does not include Arm’s IoT Services Group.NVIDIA vowed to retain Arm's open-licensing model while maintaining the global customer neutrality...