competition
EU Commission wants to examine takeover of Arm by Nvidia
Masayoshi Son, Founder and CEO of Softbank, during a press conference. The chip designer arm will in future belong to the graphics card specialist Nvidia. The previous owner, the Japanese technology group Softbank, is separating from the British company in a deal worth around 40 billion dollars. Photo: Christopher Jue / EPA / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The chip designer arm has not only dominated the global smartphone industry for many years. The company is to go to Nvidia for around 40 billion dollars. But there are concerns from the EU.
The EU competition authorities want to take a closer look at the planned takeover of the chip designer Arm by the graphics card specialist Nvidia.
It is feared that the merger “could lead to higher prices, less choice and less innovation in the semiconductor industry,” said the EU Commission in Brussels on Wednesday. In addition, the emerging company could limit the access of Nvidia competitors to Arm’s technologies.
“According to our analysis, the takeover of Arm by Nvidia could restrict or make more difficult access to Arm’s intellectual property, which could lead to distortions in many markets in which semiconductors are used,” said the responsible Vice-President of the EU Commission , Margrethe Vestager. The aim of the investigation is to ensure that companies in Europe continue to have access to the technology that is necessary to manufacture modern semiconductor products at competitive prices.
The EU Commission now has to make a decision on the planned merger by March 15, 2022. In order to allay concerns, according to the announcement on Wednesday, Nvidia had already submitted commitment offers at the beginning of October, which the Brussels authority does not consider to be sufficient.
Arm is a key company for the entire smartphone industry. The basic architecture of the chips, which are used in practically all smartphones and most tablet computers by far, comes from the company. The previous owner is the Japanese technology group Softbank. According to the company, the deal with Nvidia is around $ 40 billion from September 2020.