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Nvidia is officially buying Arm for $40 billion

Arm co-founder slams the deal as an "absolute disaster for Cambridge, the UK and Europe"

14 Sep 2020

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."