Back in September 2020, NVIDIA announced that it will acquire Arm for about $40 billion. NVIDIA was hoping to get regulatory approvals for this deal in the U.K., China, the European Union and the United States. Today, NVIDIA announced the termination of Arm deal. The reason behind the termination is significant regulatory challenges around the world. As per the terms of the agreement, SoftBank group will retain the $1.25 billion prepaid by NVIDIA.
NVIDIA will continue to be the licensee of Arm while Arm will start preparations for a public offering of Arm within the fiscal year ending
March 31, 2023.
Arm plays a vital role in the development of the technology industry. Virtually all the leading technology companies including Big Tech (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta) depend on Arm-based processors. SoftBank Group believes that Arm’s technology and intellectual property will continue to be at the center of mobile computing and the development of artificial intelligence in the coming years.
What they’re saying:
“Arm has a bright future, and we’ll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come,” said Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. “Arm is at the center of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”
“Arm is becoming a center of innovation not only in the mobile phone revolution, but also in cloud computing, automotive, the Internet of Things and the metaverse, and has entered its second growth phase,” said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group Corp. “We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress.”
Mr. Son continued, “I want to thank Jensen and his talented team at NVIDIA for trying to bring together these two great companies and wish them all the success.”
The big picture:
Arm’s revenues and profits have been growing strongly over the past few years. Arm will try to project these numbers and aim for a successful IPO. Even with a successful IPO, we think SoftBank Group would have made more profit through NVIDIA’s acquisition deal.
