Arm chief hits out at 'ill-informed speculation' over proposed Nvidia buyout The boss of Arm has moved to tackle prolonged concerns that the British chip designer's proposed $40bn buyout by Nvidia could damage competition and spell disaster for the UK's tech sector. Writing in a company blog at the weekend, Simon Segars, chief exec of Arm, was quick to latch onto the significance of the "history-making …
What exactly would change? nVidia would still have to give those Companies access to the designs at FRAND rates. seems to me the FUD here is that owing ARM, would give nVida some mad skilz to out design the other "bepoke" Chips out there.. Why cant I take Samusngs Exynos bits, and apply those into my own Chip?
Honestly though how much of ARM is even left in the UK?
Well I'm glad somebody is paying attention.
I guess nobody screamed because Softbank had no idead what to do with the IP, save rake in the cash. Now, that a real Chipmaking shark is in the water, and could certainly take ARM to the SEGA-esq "Next level", they all decided to have a colective case of brown paints.
NVidia could call first dibs on any technology it likes. Executives could whisper secrets in each others ears about contracts, specifications etc and gain a commercial advantage over rivals. ARM execs could be financially motivated to work in the interests of NVidia before rivals, e.g. prioritising projects. Fabs and subcontractors might offer preferential rates to NVidia that they didn't before. Just the mere threat of any of these things might dampen investor interest in rival technologies. So I'm sure there are a multitude of ways it could affect competition.
Aside from all that WTF is Britain thinking to sell one of its few homegrown success stories to America? It's insane.
Indeed, all to be taken with a pinch of salt.
I wonder if anyone will remember the quote “Arm will remain headquartered in the UK, and we will be able to increase our investment in UK-based talent.” in 5 years time when the NVidia board (and it will be their decision, not his) decide not to?
A lot seem to believe the USA likes the UK, demonstrably untrue. From ripping us off in ww1 to screwing us over in ww2 we get to the stab in the back of Suez, the funding and supporting of PIRA and the killing of civilians and the treating us like the old school fag over the middle east.
Actually they can and do block sales of companies and have even recently codeified even further with the National Security & Investment Act.
Even before that they could have prevented the sale of the company through various means up to and all the way up to invoking defence powers or even nationalising the company in question. Although obviously that would be the nuclear option. Presumably the uttering that threat would be sufficient to cause any deal to collapse.
Yes I can understand that concern, but regarding the "homegrown" and Arm we must remember Hermann Hauser too.
"..When Hauser was 16 he went to the United Kingdom to learn English at a language school in Cambridge.[15] After a master's degree in Physics from Vienna University,[1] he returned to King's College, Cambridge to do a PhD in Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory.".
"Hauser is probably best known for his part in setting up Acorn Computers with Chris Curry in 1978.".
Let's see, we're supposed to ignore "ill-informed speculation out there about what the future of Arm with Nvidia will look like." Fair enough; I wonder what kind of speculation that might include? It's easy to imagine that someone who's never been an nvidia customer or seen how they treat their customers and competitors might think things like:
"We'll invest with Nvidia to create new markets, not displace customers in existing ones"
and maybe
"This transaction opens up access to even more innovation that the entire semiconductor industry can harness."
and perhaps even the general
"...fears that Arm will become anti-competitive..."
Those are indeed ill-informed positions one could take if one were ignorant of nvidia's behaviour in the marketplace. Heaven forfend we be so foolish as to believe such things. Thankfully we have some sensible canned statements from Mr Holway to set us right.
I have had the misfortune to work with Nvidia in the past. I thought Vitesse was difficult to work with (the first time I had seen an NDA attached to data sheets and reference manuals) but Nvidia takes the cake.
Secrecy is in the DNA of Nvidia - it is pervasive. That is a fairly standard position of GPU makers and understandable to an extent, but it flies in the face of the historical position of ARM.
I cannot see how this would not be anti-competitive.
Let's see.
Licencing costs - increase? Given the Nvidia culture I think that is definitely possible.
Move ARM out of the UK? I can see that too; moving the HQ to the USA would give Nvidia far more freedom to rape and pillage.
This statement really caught my eye: "This transaction opens up access to even more innovation that the entire semiconductor industry can harness."
Open up access? That is the direct opposite of the Nvidia model. Luckily I was not drinking coffee when I read it.
Ok so some other "bank" snaps them up... How does this NOT translate into higher licencing costs for everyone else? Are company XYZ sopposed to eat the loss for the best part of a few decades at the cost of their would-be cusomers?
Moving out of the UK.... Ok why not just skip stright back to nVidias' real headquaters back in Singapore?
Given the domonace of ARM, and the R&D department of nVidia, its hard not to see theses advanced breakthoughs. Which will trickle out to the other OEMs, least they deside to opt with something called Fragrent Hills. Which I gather will end up becoming a direct rival to ARM, here before to long.
NVidia is a company that has burned many bridges. They are not a delight to work with. Given their proven and repeated track record, I can see nothing but bad coming from this sale. I don't know the future, but it might even be the death of ARM and the rise of RISC-V (unless Intel takes over RISC-V, in which case that too will die).
I can think of only two other companies which be equally as bad for ARM as NVidia will be: Apple and Oracle. I hope the British regulators block this move with extreme prejudice.
He went on: "Nvidia will not siphon investment away from the UK. Instead, it will invest in the expansion of Arm's Cambridge HQ and build a world-class AI research facility. The combination of Arm's technology with Nvidia's deep expertise in AI will make the UK the leader in research, innovation and scientific discovery for decades to come."...
"We'll invest with Nvidia to create new markets, not displace customers in existing ones," said Segars. "This transaction opens up access to even more innovation that the entire semiconductor industry can harness."
Excellent. When can we expect Nvidia to sign the perpetual, binding contract that has defined, large, penalties - civial and criminal - attached to it to enforce these obligations?
I see nothing in the article but words, statements, and press releases.
If the deal is approved, I see nothing that can't be changed due to the traditional "changing conditions" excuse. It's not like that would be novel. All the companies listed as objecting to it here done it themselves with their acquisitions.
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