After months of intense scrutiny and delays, it appears Nvidia is preparing to abandon its attempts to acquire Arm Holding.
SoftBank first signaled in July 2020 that it was looking sell off its share of Arm Holding, or take the company public, with Nvidia announcing in September of that year that it would acquire Arm for $40 billion. Almost immediately, the deal received widespread criticism, with Arm’s co-founder calling it an “absolute disaster.”
Governments around the world expressed antitrust concerns, opening investigation into the acquisition. The UK signaled it may try to block Nvidia’s efforts, the EU regulators launched an investigation, and the FCC filed a lawsuit to block the deal.
According to a report by Bloomberg, it appears Nvidia may be ready to abandon the deal altogether. According to Boomberg’s source, while the company publicly says it is still trying to make it happen, it is privately telling partners that it doesn’t expect the deal to go through.
Many countries and industry experts were concerned that Nvidia would keep Arm’s best innovations to itself, giving it a competitive advantage. Given Arm’s long-standing practice of licensing its semiconductor designs to anyone who wanted to use them, any change in how the company might operate under Nvidia could cause massive ripple effects throughout the industry.
Meanwhile, the UK was especially concerned about its premier semiconductor company being under the control of a US corporation at a time when the semiconductor industry is being impacted by national security concerns like never before.
Ultimately, Nvidia has not been able to effectively address these concerns, leading to the current situation.
