NVIDIA announced in September 2020 that it would be acquiring British semiconductor and software design company Arm for $40 billion as a means of accelerating innovation and extending the reach of its AI-centric computing platform.
Unfortunately, there’s a chance that none of that might actually happen.
This is primarily due to a report that was recently delivered by the local Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has convinced U.K. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and other key officials that NVIDIA’s acquisition of Arm could have worrying implications for the country.
More specifically, third parties have raised significant concerns over how the deal could include potential risks to national security.
Coverage from Bloomberg suggests that the problems are serious enough for the takeover to be rejected completely. A deeper review is expected before officials come to a final decision, however.
“If regulators do block the deal, it will impede Nvidia’s ability to dominate the computing-chip market, but we believe investors already had low expectations that the deal would be completed.” – Anand Srinivasan, BI senior semiconductors industry analyst
Source: Bloomberg