NVIDIA announced the purchase of ARM for $ 40 billion

NVIDIA will pay the Japanese company SoftBank, which has owned ARM since 2016, $21.5 billion in shares;

• another $12 billion will be paid in cash, including $2 billion at the conclusion of the transaction;
• ARM can also count on an additional $5 billion in case of implementation of development plans;
• ARM employees will receive $1.5 billion in NVIDIA shares;
• as a result of the deal, SoftBank will own less than 10% of NVIDIA;
• The $40 billion deal will be the largest in the history of the semiconductor market.
• The previous record was also associated with ARM, when the company was bought by SoftBank for $32 billion.Upcoming inspection

At the same time, the companies will not be able to close the deal in the near future.

They will have to wait for verification and approval from regulators from the UK, China, the EU and the USA. It is expected that it will take about 1.5 years.

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said he is ready to cooperate with the regulatory authorities of China. At the same time, he is confident that the company will be able to get the necessary approval.

Why is NVIDIA interested in ARM?The video card manufacturer intends to use ARM’s developments and ecosystem for the development of artificial intelligence.

At the moment, NVIDIA is already installing its graphics chips in data centers for speech and image recognition. Now the company plans to expand the use of AI to all equipment using ARM processors – from self—driving cars to smartphones and PCs.

“In the future, trillions of computers based on artificial intelligence will create a new “Internet of things”, which is thousands of times larger than the current “Internet of people”. Together we will build a company perfectly suited for the AI era,” Huang said.

Possible problems with other companiesAfter the news of the deal, some analysts expressed concerns that many ARM licensees would take the purchase of the company with hostility.

These include Apple, which recently announced its desire to transfer its laptops and personal computers to processors with ARM architecture.

Huang said he would not interfere in the relationship of the British company with licensees, but, on the contrary, wants to expand the list of its partners.However, the deal may be complicated by the fact that NVIDIA is a direct competitor to some ARM customers — in particular, Intel.

Every year, more than 1 billion smartphones are sold in the world, which use ARM processors. Products under the company’s license are produced by Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and others.

After the purchase, NVIDIA will leave ARM’s headquarters in the UK and invest in building a separate center for AI research, customer training and robotics experiments.

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• Is there any news?