Rumor: NVIDIA is interested in purchasing ARM (updated)
Nvidia is said to be interested in obtaining chip designer Arm. That is what sources involved in this say to financial news agency Bloomberg. Last week it was revealed that SoftBank, the current owner of Arm, would be considering a sale.
Nvidia has, according to Bloomberg sources, approached Arm in recent weeks about a possible acquisition. According to the sources, other bidders could emerge, but details are not yet known. Four years ago ARM was acquired by Softbank for a sum of 29 billion euros, and since then the value raised. Nvidia may have the means to acquire ARM after having recently been listed higher than Intel, but whether Nvidia's interest will eventually lead to a deal with SoftBank remains to be seen. Should it come to this, it would be the largest takeover in the history of the chip industry. A takeover of Arm will be watched by numerous authorities as many companies depend on its technology. An acquisition of Arm by Nvidia will mean a shift in the market and increase Nvidia's chances of growing in different markets.
Updated: Bloomberg now reports that NVIDIA is in advanced talks:
-- Bloomberg --
Nvidia Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire Arm Ltd., the chip designer that SoftBank Group Corp. bought for $32 billion four years ago, according to people familiar with the matter.
The two parties aim to reach a deal in the next few weeks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Nvidia is the only suitor in concrete discussions with SoftBank, according to the people.
A deal for Arm could be the largest ever in the semiconductor industry, which has been consolidating in recent years as companies seek to diversify and add scale. Cambridge, England-based Arm’s technology underpins chips in products including Apple Inc. devices and connected appliances.
No final decisions have been made, and the negotiations could drag on longer or fall apart, the people said. SoftBank may gauge interest from other suitors if it can’t reach an agreement with Nvidia, the people said. Representatives for Nvidia, SoftBank and Arm declined to comment.
Any deal with Nvidia, which is a customer of Arm, would likely trigger regulatory scrutiny as well as a wave of opposition from other users of the company’s technology. Other Arm clients could demand assurances that a new owner would continue providing equal access to Arm’s instruction set. Such concerns resulted in SoftBank, a neutral company, buying Arm the last time it was for sale.
A deal for Arm could become the biggest-ever acquisition in the chip industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Arm is owned by SoftBank and its $100 billion Vision Fund. The Japanese group bought Arm, which at the time was the U.K.’s largest listed technology company, for about $32 billion in 2016.
Rumor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and 3080 Coming Q3 2020 + Specs - 04/29/2020 02:25 PM
The rumor mill can't stop the chatter about NVIDIA's series 3000 cards, and that will probably stay that way until announced. Today yet another twitter user posted a chart, with names and specificat...
Rumor: NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3000 video cards launch delayed to September - 03/30/2020 09:02 AM
With all that is going on in the world, it seems that NVIDIA is adapting as well. The Ampera GPU based consumer products would now be announced in September. Originally is was the plan to share detail...
RUMOR: NVIDIA to announce the GeForce RTX 3000 in August - 03/26/2020 07:34 PM
According to the latest leaked gossip (and it is just that), NVIDIA would now be launching its new GeForce RTX 3000 at the end of August so that its partners can display their custom models at Compute...
Rumor: NVIDIA GeForce Ampere to be fabbed at 10nm, all cards RTX ? - 03/12/2020 05:42 PM
We'll probably go back and forth a bit when it comes to the topic of Ampere until NVIDIA lifts all mystery, expected was that NVIDIA's upcoming GPUs would be fabbed at 7nm. However, that fabrication...
Rumor: NVIDIA Ampere GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 specs surface - 01/20/2020 01:04 PM
It has been a crazy year, lots of leaks and info mostly coming through unknown Twitter accounts. Today we can add to that as alleged specifications of the GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 have surfaced....
Senior Member
Posts: 14091
Joined: 2004-05-16
So why does Nvidia want ARM so bad ?
for them to get into the phone market ?
They will be in everything.
Servers
It essentially fast tracts them to compete with AMD/Intel in super computing contracts they are currently losing out on.
They have some experience with ARM in Denver but it's a farcry from what's required in the server CPU space. ARM has a ton of really good engineering talent and already has a functioning design/engineer team in place. It's way faster to just buy it then build your own.
Senior Member
Posts: 8230
Joined: 2010-11-16
Europe should block any attempt of purchase from any company from the US or from China.
Unfortunetly this type of thinking is too much for the "geniuses" in Brussels that are more interested in wasting time with superflous stuff...
I very much doubt that something as basic as this flies over the heads of EU overlords.
Why would EU want to bet their houses during schizo moment US/China are going through. Let them deal with it.
Senior Member
Posts: 326
Joined: 2015-09-17
i dont like this move at all, a consolidation of technology and interdependent software designs on a single entity. Why not bail out of this as a win situation heh ARM?
Senior Member
Posts: 420
Joined: 2012-06-24
So why does Nvidia want ARM so bad ?
for them to get into the phone market ?
They will be in everything.
My gut feeling is both for servers and small robots for streamlining industry.
I also wonder if this is a move to control ARM so that it doesn't undercut its GPU server market where they can artificially maintain prices. Recently lots of custom silicon coming out claiming to deliver similar AI performance to Nvidia GPU setup at significantly less money, like the new A64FX
Senior Member
Posts: 301
Joined: 2020-06-26
So why does Nvidia want ARM so bad ?
for them to get into the phone market ?
They will be in everything.