Report: NVIDIA's ARM Takeover Faces Second Antitrust/National Security Inquiry (engadget.com) 17
The UK's digital and cultural secretary will instruct the country's Competition & Markets Authority to conduct "an in-depth inquiry into antitrust concerns" over NVIDIA's purchase of ARM, reports the Sunday Times, "as well as scrutinise national security fears raised by the takeover...."
Engadget reports: A second investigation would reportedly last about six months. After that, officials could either block the deal, approve it as-is or require concessions...
The tech firm has focused its energy so far on downplaying concerns about ARM's neutrality if the deal closes, promising an open licensing model that treats customers fairly.
Any second investigation wouldn't necessarily spell doom for NVIDIA's acquisition. It would suggest the government has some qualms, however, and that NVIDIA might have to make some sacrifices. At the least, the company would have to be patient — it wouldn't get UK approval until 2022 at the earliest, and it would still have to wait for other regulators before finalizing the merger.
In other news, ARM has joined the Rust Foundation.
Engadget reports: A second investigation would reportedly last about six months. After that, officials could either block the deal, approve it as-is or require concessions...
The tech firm has focused its energy so far on downplaying concerns about ARM's neutrality if the deal closes, promising an open licensing model that treats customers fairly.
Any second investigation wouldn't necessarily spell doom for NVIDIA's acquisition. It would suggest the government has some qualms, however, and that NVIDIA might have to make some sacrifices. At the least, the company would have to be patient — it wouldn't get UK approval until 2022 at the earliest, and it would still have to wait for other regulators before finalizing the merger.
In other news, ARM has joined the Rust Foundation.
Stands to reason (Score:4, Interesting)
It stands to reason that Nvidia wouldn't be buying ARM unless it was of great benefit to them. If it benefits Nvidia then it can't be good for their competitors.
That's likely the reason no other licensees have tried to buy it. They knew it wouldn't get past anti-trust. Softbank was only able to because they don't make any ARM CPUs themselves.
Comparison (Score:2)
It makes sense for Nvidia to buy ARM. Nvidia's two biggest competitors, AMD and Intel, both also sell CPUs. Saying there are antitrust concerns is a bit facetious, especially with China putting a lot of muscle behind RISCV.
Re: (Score:2)
Forget China the EU is doing the same with RISC-V
https://www.european-processor... [european-p...tiative.eu]
Re: (Score:3)
Not necessarily. Sometimes a company buys another to remove a potential competitor, not to acquire their assets. And this is particularly true of the largest companies, hence the antitrust scrutiny is in order. But the main reason for the UK authority's interest in the Nvidia deal is probably because losing control of essentially the country's only chip manufacturer to a foreign company has strategic significance.
But of course it'll go away! (Score:4, Insightful)
They just need to...charitably donate...*COUGH* to the correct political campaigns.
I swear, shit like this is like chumming shark invested waters...
Pure postering? (Score:3, Informative)
1. Like COP26, politicians gather around and act like they are doing something, without actually doing anything. The pretence of doing something is a way of trying do demonstrate to voters that they "stand up to big business" and "keep the so-and-so's honest".... or something like that.
2. Now that the nVIDIA feathers have been ruffled, nVIDIA need to send "lobbyists" out to the politicians and "get the job done". nVIDIA be like, "So, you want more buildings and roads built in your local area? Got it. We can do that. Anything else? Oh you want to get a discount on some of our existing tech? Got it. Oh you want....a middle-management consultant role when you finish up in Parliament next year? Sure... send in your resume... we will look after you Sir". *wink*
Yeah so these fake protestations and posturing just buy leverage, either for their principality's benefit, or their own personal gain. Revolving door between government and big business... it's not rocket science (unless the politician ends up at SpaceX but yeah you get the picture). I live in hope that the deal gets axed, but I am also a realist.
Why doesn't ARM buy ARM (Score:2)
If UK politicians had a clue... (Score:2)
... ARM would never have been allowed to be sold to Softbank in the first place. I can't imagie regulators in the US or Australia allowing a home grown international leader in CPUs being flogged off the highest bidder, but thats what you get with clueless PPE grads and old Etonians on both sides of the house who's knowledge of technology stops shortly before the industrial revolution.
Re: (Score:2)
ARM's problem is that RISC-V is sneaking up on it. No matter who controls ARM, there's more control in the way of progress than there is with RISC-V. The writing is on the wall for ARM as a result, even without nvidia's interference. The smart thing to do is to go ahead and sell off ARM and spend either on RISC-V, or some other idea. Otherwise they can clutch tightly to ARM all the way to its irrelevance.
Re: (Score:2)
Dream on. No embedded designers are in a hurry to switch to RISC-V anytime soon. There is no compelling reason other than saving a bit of licensing costs and nothing like the support and tooling or - yet - the functionality. Also there's no guarantee RISC-V will continue to be developed when the designers get bored and move on to something else which happens all the time in OSS projects. For software there are thousands who can pick up the baton in that situation, for CPU hardware you could probably count t
Re: (Score:2)
No embedded designers are in a hurry to switch to RISC-V anytime soon. There is no compelling reason other than saving a bit of licensing costs and nothing like the support and tooling or - yet - the functionality
All that is correct. However, the urge to save money increases when the numbers of processors get into the stupid zone, which is what we're going to see with IoT like it or not. So there's always going to be someone for whom reducing costs further is relevant.
Also there's no guarantee RISC-V will continue to be developed when the designers get bored and move on to something else which happens all the time in OSS projects. For software there are thousands who can pick up the baton in that situation, for CPU hardware you could probably count them in double digits.
Supposedly RISC-V is relatively comprehensible, but I'm no judge so I can't speak to that. But now that there's companies actually producing hardware they're going to want to continue to produce more of it because it brings their relative costs down.
Re: (Score:1)
Block this already. (Score:2)
Nvidia has shown over and over that they dont play well with others and there has to be one good reason why they want ARM so bad and given what we have already observed from them, it will not benefit anybody except them, which means, the industry and yes, us the customers will be boned.
Block this already!
Where were they ... (Score:2)