Nvidia and Arm call off $80B merger and Arm CEO resigns
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Nvidia and Arm are calling off their $80 billion merger, according to announcements from the companies tonight. Arm CEO Simon Segars has resigned.
The deal was one of the boldest moves by two industry leaders to define the future of computing, but it turned out to be too bold as regulators around the world had antitrust concerns about the deal.
It’s a blow to SoftBank, which had hoped to sell Arm for a tidy profit. Renee Haas, the president of Arm’s intellectual property group (and former Nvidia VP and general manager of its computing products business), will now become CEO of Arm.
Meanwhile, Arm said will consider a public offering instead of an acquisition, with an initial public offering happening within the next 12 months.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it would sue to block the merger, as the combined company would unfairly undermine Nvidia’s rivals. European Union antitrust regulators also had objections. Rivals such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and Qualcomm should breathe easier now. Intel had been backing one of Arm’s intellectual property rivals, RISC V, as a kind of contingency to deal with Nvidia’s potential hold on Arm.
Nvidia is the leader in the graphics processing unit (GPU) and AI processor market for computers and servers, while Arm made intellectual property that powered virtually all smartphones and internet of things devices.
Nvidia first announced its plans for this mega-merger in September 2020. At the time, the deal was valued at $40 billion.
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