A few weeks ago we saw that the purchase of Xilinx by AMD was still in the air, because China had not yet given the green light to said operation. Our colleague Celia told us that the Chinese authorities they were still evaluating all the keys of that operationand we saw that the forecasts were, in general, positive, that is, there should be no unforeseen events that put the purchase at risk.
In the end, those predictions have been fulfilled. China has approved the purchase of Xilinx by AMD, although it has put some important conditions in its resolution, which means that, in short, it is about conditional approval. AMD will only be able to close the purchase if it accepts these conditions and complies with them for a fixed period of 6 years, as can be read in the information shared by Reuters.
Among the conditions that the State Administration of Market Regulation of China has given, are the not force tied sales of products, non-discrimination of customers who limit themselves to purchasing certain product groups, but completely omit other products; and ensuring the flexibility and programmability of Xilinx FPGAs. Its development methods must also continue to be compatible with ARM-based processors.
On the other hand, AMD will also need to ensure that its GPUs and FPGA solutions sold in China are fully compatible with, and interoperable with, products sold in the Chinese market. There is no doubt that the State Administration for Market Regulation of China has been able to sweep homeand that it has taken important precautions to prevent the purchase of Xilinx by the Sunnyvale giant from causing any kind of damage in that country.
What can I say, seeing the situation that the trade war between China and the United States is dragging on, the restrictions that some companies from the Asian giant have had to face and how the purchase of Xilinx by AMD could affect China, I must admit that, in general, , I’m not surprised that conditional approvalIn fact, I completely understand it.
China could have stopped this operation without any problem, in fact it is something that this country, and also the United States, have done on more than one occasion, but this time AMD has had luck on their side, not only because of the approval, but also because the conditions are not particularly complicated.
Cover image: Reuters.
