Nvidia and Softbank have agreed a $40 billion (£30 billion) deal for UK-based chip manufacturer Arm.
Under the terms of the transaction, Nvidia will pay SoftBank a total of $21.5 billion in common stock and $12 billion in cash, which includes $2 billion payable at signing.
However, the acquisition has been met with some backlash within the industry, and also within the UK's government, over fears Nvidia will move Arm's operations out of Cambridge. Japanese investment group Softbank took over the chipmaker in 2016, and the government at the time mandated that Arm remains in the UK.
On Friday, Ed Miliband called for similar "legally binding assurances" that UK jobs would be protected should Nvidia acquire the company.
Following the announcement of the deal, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that his company "intends to retain the name and strong brand identity" of Arm within the UK and also expand its base in Cambridge.
"Nvidia will build on Arm's R&D presence in the UK, establishing a new global centre of excellence in AI research at Arm's Cambridge campus," Huang said in a statement.
"Nvidia will invest in a state-of-the-art, Arm-powered AI supercomputer, training facilities for developers and a startup incubator, which will attract world-class research talent and create a platform for innovation and industry partnerships in fields such as healthcare, robotics and self-driving cars."
The acquisition of Arm strengthens Nvidia's position in the chip market, particularly against Intel. Reports claim that Arm CPUs will help Nvidia company gain a stronger foothold in the data centre industry.
Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser has slammed the acquisition as "an absolute disaster for Cambridge, the UK and Europe", suggesting that it is anti-competitive.
"Nvidia will destroy ARM's business model," Hauser told BBC Radio 4. "The business model of Arm is being the Switzerland of the semi-conductor industry, of dealing with over 500 licensees, most of which are competitors of Nvidia."
-
Helping customers adopt a multi-cloud infrastructure and accelerate their modernization journeySponsored Content We outline what shifting to a subscription model means for your business
-
UK firms are 'sleepwalking' into smart building cyber threatsNews The convergence of operational technology and IT systems is posing serious risks for property firms.
-
‘This is the largest AI ecosystem in the world without its own infrastructure’: Jensen Huang thinks the UK has immense AI potential – but it still has a lot of work to doNews The Nvidia chief exec described the UK as a “fantastic place for VCs to invest” but stressed hardware has to expand to reap the benefits
-
Nvidia GTC 2025: Four big announcements you need to know aboutNews Nvidia GTC 2025, the chipmaker’s annual conference, has dominated the airwaves this week – and it’s not hard to see why.
-
HPE unveils Mod Pod AI ‘data center-in-a-box’ at Nvidia GTCNews Water-cooled containers will improve access to HPC and AI hardware, the company claimed
-
Run.ai software will be made open source in wake of Nvidia acquisitionNews Infrastructure management tools from Run:ai will be made available across the AI ecosystem
-
Cognizant and Nvidia team up to supercharge data modernizationNews The collaboration merges Nvidia AI with Cognizant’s data analytics accelerators to deliver “unprecedented speed and efficiency”
-
AMD’s ZT Systems acquisition primes it for a battle with NvidiaNews AMD plans to expand its AI infrastructure capabilities with the $4.9 billion deal
-
Nvidia thinks it’s time to start measuring data center efficiency by other metrics — is this the end of PUE?News Nvidia says data center efficiency has moved on so much that new measures are needed to track performance
-
Nvidia wants telcos to ramp up 6G research — and it’s betting AI will be the key to future developmentNews Nvidia has unveiled a new 6G research platform that will allow telcos to explore using AI for radio access network technology
