Graphics card juggernaut NVIDIA intends to acquire international chip architecture design company Arm in a deal worth approximately $40 billion, the two companies announced in a joint statement issued earlier today. Arm was originally established as a British company but got acquired by SoftBank Group, a Japanese corporation several years ago.
This majority owner of Arm now appears to be willing to sell, signaling that flipping the chip design firm was its intent all along. It is currently unclear when exactly might this transaction actually go through.
Because the highly collaborative nature of 21st-century chipmaking, not to mention the complex ownership structures of the companies involved, mean this acquisition will need to get regulatory approval from pretty much every continent bar Antartica.
As smartphones are a huge business in every corner of the globe. NVIDIA said its intent here is to bolster its R&D talent in the AI chip race. While Arm gets to secure its long-term future by tying up with one of the largest technology companies that ever existed. Arm’s headquarters would remain in Cambridge, UK, following the purchase, the two companied confirmed.
In an ideal scenario, this acquisition would secure all necessary regulatory approvals in the second half of the next year, but a lot of regulatory hurdles remain between that outcome and where we currently are.
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