Today on Habré the news was published that Nvidia officially confirmed the deal to acquire ARM from SoftBank for $ 40 billion. Representatives of Nvidia believe that it will give an impetus to the development of the artificial intelligence industry, and the company itself will become No. 1 in the field of AI technologies.
But some in the IT industry disagree. In particular, ARM founder Hermann Hauser considers the deal disastrous for the entire industry.
According to Hauser, ARM's buyer Nvidia is far from the best option in the current environment for the following reasons:
- First, ARM's business model is incompatible with Nvidia's current business model. Now the technology of the British company can be licensed with almost no restrictions.
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As for the last argument, Hauser is convinced that this is the option Nvidia is using, since it will allow the buyer to earn much more than $ 40 billion.
By the way, Hauser was also against ARM's deal with Softbank in 2016. But then he did not express such strong concern, since the buyer was not directly associated with the IT industry and was able to ensure the neutrality of ARM. But the situation with Nvidia is exactly the opposite.
The importance of ARM technologies to the modern IT industry is extremely high. Its technologies are used in all kinds of electronic devices, including smartphones, tablets, wireless routers, wearable electronics and IoT devices.
ARM Partners are the largest IT corporations in the world, including Apple. This corporation develops its own ARM-based processors for the Mac. High-performance processors for servers are produced based on the ARM architecture. An example is Ampere Computing's 128-core Altra Max processor .
If desired, Nvidia could take the lead as a microprocessor manufacturer, capturing 95% of mobile chips and 90% of IoT gadgets. Nvidia will increase its presence in the field of data centers. The company’s latest report shows that Nvidia’s work in this area is generating more revenue than manufacturing graphics cards for consumer devices.
According to Bloomberg , Nvidia will not be able to close the deal due to monopoly control by regulators. The deal is too dangerous for some of the largest US manufacturers, including Intel, AMD and Qualcomm - all of which license ARM technology.
The regulatory authorities will literally under the microscope consider the possible consequences of the transaction and its details. ARM licensees can act as a united front against the agreement between Softbank and Nvidia. On the other hand, Nvidia could offer a number of guarantees to ensure equal access to ARM technology, and then the deal is more likely to go through.
