With NVIDIA already and very publicly working with ARM, the NVIDIA-ARM acquisition deal has not met any roadblock to its completion. A deal which would land NVIDIA one of their largest acquisitions to date but that would now face its first regulator challenge as the UK is looking to investigate the $40-billion dollar acquisition under public interest. The investigation will be tasked to the Competition and Markets Authority of the UK and a report is expected to be filed to the UK government by midyear 2021.
While SoftBank, a Japanese company, currently owns ARM and NVIDIA is a US company, ARM itself is a UK entity. NVIDIA has since responded saying that they acquisition holds no national security issues and has further stressed that “We will continue to work closely with the British authorities, as we have done since the announcement of this deal.”
There are companies who have been vocal in questioning the deal but one particular critic of the deal is co-founder of ARM itself, Hermann Hauser who stated that the NVIDIA-ARM deal would be a disaster. He has also voted against the SoftBank acquisition prior as SoftBank has fulfilled their promise to maintain the UK-based home of ARM. As one of the largest US-based tech companies based on capitalization, NVIDIA may choose to host its ARM operations in the US but that would be a far concern especially towards the UK’s national security, as this investigation is citing as its main reason.