Nvidia and Arm have officially abandoned a deal that would have seen Nvidia purchase the semiconductor firm for $40 billion.
Nvidia announced in September 2020 that it would purchase Arm Holdings for $40 billion. Almost immediately, critics jumped on the announcement, citing a number of concerns. UK lawmakers were concerned about the country’s preeminent semiconductor firm being sold to an American company, especially at a time when the semiconductor industry is increasingly becoming an area of national security focus. Competitors were concerned Nvidia would hoard Arm’s greatest breakthroughs for itself, in contrast to Arm’s long-standing pattern of selling its semiconductor designs to any company willing to pay.
After intense opposition from the UK, the EU, and even a lawsuit filed by the FCC to block the acquisition, the two companies have officially called it off.
“Arm has a bright future, and we’ll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come,” said Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. “Arm is at the center of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”
Meanwhile, Arm’s CEO, Simon Segars, has stepped down and been replaced by Rene Haas, a 35-year veteran of the semiconductor industry.
“Rene is the right leader to accelerate Arm’s growth as the company starts making preparations to re-enter the public markets,” said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. “I would like to thank Simon for his leadership, contributions and dedication to Arm over the past 30 years.”
“It is an honor to lead the world’s most influential technology company at a time when Arm’s market opportunity has never been greater,” said Mr. Haas. “As the innovators of the industry’s most pervasive compute architecture, Arm changed lives around the globe by delivering the technology at the heart of the smartphone revolution. We are now uniquely positioned to address the diverse demands of AI, cloud, IoT, automotive and the Metaverse. And with the uncertainty of the past several months behind us, we are emboldened by a renewed energy to move into a growth strategy and change lives around the world―again.”
