Elon Musk indicates competition concerns over Nvidia's planned acquisition of Arm: Report

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has indicated competition concerns over Nvidia Corp’s planned purchase of the UK chip designer Arm. A Telegraph report on August 29, citing several sources, stated that the Tesla founder’s signal came after e-commerce giant Amazon Inc and smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co Ltd lodged separate oppositions to the Nvidia-Arm deal with the United States authorities. Just earlier this week, the US Federal Trade Commission launched a detailed probe into the takeover and the newspaper stated that the findings are expected to be published in coming weeks. 

In June, Nvidia corp had submitted an application with the Chinese competition regulators to review the takeover of UK chip designer Arm, reported Financial Times citing people who were familiar with the matter. The report also added that Chinese antitrust lawyers noted that the Nvidia application started scrutiny which could take up to 18 months. Nvidia has said that it hopes its acquisition of Arm would be completed by March 2022 after reaching a deal with Japan's SoftBank Group in September 2020. The bank currently owns the Cambridge-based Arm.

UK competition watchdog on Nividia’s Arm acquisition

Nvidia’s planned $54 billion takeover of Arm raises “serious” competition concerns, the UK's competition watchdog has said. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) flagged worries with the deal over it stifling innovation in a range of areas including gaming and self-driving cars. Hence, CMA suggested a more in-depth investigation into the takeover. However, Nvidia has said that the deals ould further benefit Arm, licensees and even the competition in the UK.

The spokesperson for US-based Nvidia was quoted by BBC saying, “We look forward to the opportunity to address the CMA's initial views and resolve any concerns the government may have.” The concerns over acquisition mainly revolve around the fact that Arm's intellectual property (IP) is utilised by some of Nvidia’s competitors to produce semiconductor chips. CMA also stated that if Nvidia controlled Arm, it would further cut off access to that IP for its designated rivals. 

Meanwhile, media reports have also stated that the European Union (EU) is set to launch a formal competition probe early next month into Nvidia’s upcoming takeover. The probe will come after months of informal discussions between regulators and the US-based company which is also the world's largest graphic and AI chip maker. The investigation will most likely start after Nvidia official notifies the European Commission of its Arm acquisition. 

IMAGE: AP/Twitter