On Monday, the UK said it would intervene in SoftBank’s sale of chip designer ARM Holdings to U.S. group Nvidia on national security grounds, and had requested a report on the implications of the $40 billion deal.
The acquisition would give Nvidia control over a critical supplier that licenses essential chip technology to the likes of Apple Inc., Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., Amazon.com Inc. and China’s Huawei Technologies Co.
In February, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm, among other companies, protested Nvidia $40 billion deal for Arm Ltd. and asked U.S. antitrust officials to intervene.
Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “Following careful consideration of the proposed takeover of ARM, I have today issued an intervention notice on national security grounds.
“As a next step and to help me gather the relevant information, the UK’s independent competition authority will now prepare a report on the implications of the transaction, which will help inform any further decisions.”
The deal, which was announced in September, puts a vital supplier to multiple silicon chip makers under the control of a single player, generating pushback from regulators and rivals to Nvidia, the biggest U.S. chip company by market capitalization.
MacDailyNews Take: This SoftBank sale of Arm Hodldings to Nvidia could take years to materialize, if it ever does.
Sounds correct.