EU Commission may extend antitrust probe into Nvidia's $54bn merger with Arm Nvidia’s $54 billion bid to takeover British chip designer Arm is reportedly facing more hurdles than expected as the EU Commission extends its antitrust investigation of the deal. Both companies had expected authorities to scrutinize the merger after Nvidia officially submitted its plans to acquire Arm to the EU, last month. …
Er, the government has opened an investigation into the proposed deal.
But I am wondering how Arm can be worth so much? It's not like Arm make billions in profit every quarter. Hell, SoftBank themselves were only hoping 24 Billion. Far be it for me to cast aspersions, but maybe the American government is in on it somewhere. After all, after what they have done to Huawei in the name of protectionism, imagine what they could do if they could say that all Arm technology belongs to America.
Coincidentally, last time I looked, Arm has largely ignored the American diktat to not supply China which won't have gone down well. Plus they also have a facility over there. Which they seem to be having problems with.
I suppose time will tell
I would agree but it can get a bit complicated.
Looking at Arm on Wikipedia we find this:
Arm Holdings, a multinational company that designs the ARM computer processors
and
Arm Ltd. (stylized as arm) is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England.
But looking for the HQ for Airbus you find this:
Headquarters
Leiden, Netherlands (Headquarters)
Blagnac, Greater Toulouse, France (Main Office)
Madrid, Spain (International Office)
Hamburg, Germany (Operations Office)
I suppose you will not call it a Dutch company due to the HQ.
Yes, I'm sure all of their development happens in that one office, they just have the other global offices to show off.
If the business is owned elsewhere, what is the advantage to Britain in claiming it as our own? They certainly take UK subsidies for R&D, do they pay much UK tax? What percentage of employees are UK based?
It could go like this:
1. The anti-trust investigation is a code word for negotiating under the table payment
2. NVidia buys ARM
3. China annexes Taiwan
4. China takes ownership of ARM
5. All IP gets shipped to Shenzen and UK offices close
6. Gets renamed to 喂食的手
7. Western companies will no longer be able to license the IP
But that's just my imagination.
The NVidia CEO is Taiwanese, so when Taiwan becomes part of China they will be subject of their security law, which essentially says that any Chinese citizen must do what security agencies tells them to do (or simply put what the party wants). If they say give us an arm, they will have to do it...
China annexes Taiwan
That's the bit that won't happen.
The "China is going to annex Taiwan" stuff I keep reading on the internet sounds like America's regular search for a new enemy to point at now that their most recent wars are winding down.
I seem to remember the constant existential dread from the US military when the Berlin Wall came down and they lost the Soviet Union. Those were scary times for the Military Industrial Complex.
I thought the same. I still feel China are banging on about it like a bully but not planning to go ahead. Mainly because they realise their economy exists because of the rest of the world and selling shit on Amazon. Take that away and they'll end up tanking and loosing tons of money.
So much is made in China. Take for example the quality model maker Sideshow Collectibles. They looked amazing when I saw them on Tested (on YouTube with Adam Savage from mythbusters. A maker, his one day builds are a must watch) but then you look into it and they are pretty much made in China. They make the first mold in the US which we see in all their marketing bollocks. Then they ship it to China for the factories and painters their to do the runs. So no longer special yet still a mass markup price.
Small example but hopefully makes my point.
"To me, it's a no-brainer that this should be stopped"
^ I fully agree with this. This is too much concentration of influence and any of Nvidia, Intel and AMD should be banned from acquiring ARM.
In addition, Nvidia's promises cannot be trusted at all. For example, ARM will eventually be treated just the same way as Icera was if this takeover is allowed to proceed.
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