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The European Union opens a formal investigation of the purchase of ARM by Nvidia

The European Comission has opened a formal investigation on competition to purchase What would you like to do Nvidia from the company dedicated to chip design ARM. The agreement, announced last September 2020, has not yet been able to materialize, and if it occurs, it would put ARM, for 40,000 million dollars, in the hands of Nvidia. But the closing of the agreement is having many obstacles, since the operation raises suspicions in governments of various countries and regions.

Among them is the EU, which, according to your Vice President Margrethe Vestager, argues that the purchase of ARM by Nvidia could make it difficult for other manufacturers to access ARM technology, which would do a lot of damage to a large part of the semiconductor sector, which is currently facing a notable crisis due to shortages chip. The main concern of this agreement is, therefore, whether ARM’s neutrality will be maintained.

This company licenses its chip designs to a wide variety of companies in the electronics industry. Among them Apple, Samsung or Qualcomm, and several are direct competitors of Nvidia, in addition to each other. There are fears among authorities in different areas that once Nvidia has control of ARM, Nvidia’s competitors will be at a disadvantage.

The Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, has ensured that this will not happen, and has committed to maintaining ARM’s open licensing model. But critics of the deal fear that regulators will not be able to force Nvidia to remain neutral indefinitely. According to the EU, Nvidia has engaged with them to try to address several of the concerns they have, but the commission has decided that the elements and promises supplied by Nvidia are not enough to quell serious doubts about the effects of the operation of purchase.

In addition to this investigation, the European Union plans to investigate how the deal could affect the way Nvidia’s competitors share information with ARM, and whether Nvidia could shift ARM’s research and development funding to make its products more profitable. , to the detriment of those using other ARM technologies. Both Nvidia and ARM awaited investigations like this, so they had indicated that they expected that the deal could not be closed until 18 months after the announcement.

It seems that the EU investigation is not going to be the only one facing both companies. The UK Competition and Markets Authority It recommended its own in-depth investigation last August, after asking third parties for their opinion of the deal. In addition, regulators in the United States and China could also thoroughly inspect the deal. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom is investigating the implications that the agreement could have on national security, and points out that the operation could lead to problems. All this means that, although all the investigations are favorable to the agreement, the estimated time for the closing of the agreement will almost certainly be higher than the estimated time.

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