One of the things politicians know how to do is say they are very concerned about things, but then move more slowly than a snail. Let us not forget that the evaluation must have started months ago and was delayed due to the leave of the regulatory committee, NVIDIA on the other hand tried to convince the politicians with aid to European programs.
The situation in the European Union concerning the takeover of ARM by NVIDIA is paradoxical to say the least, in the first place ARM is a British company and after Brexit this should not worry. In addition, Europe has been behind for years in the development of semiconductor technology and it is at the moment that it sees that it is lagging far behind that it is concerned.
The point is, they finally decided to start evaluating the buying and selling process and issued a press release about it.
The European Union is finally speaking
Finally, the European Union has started to thoroughly investigate the deal between NVIDIA and ARM to see if it complies with the supranational entity’s merger regulations. Your conclusions? Predictably, they fear that Nvidia will veto its competitors over access to ARM technology and that control over it will result in higher prices for the end consumer.
The words of the Executive Vice-President in charge of Competition Policy, Margrethe Vestager, in a press release they were as follows:
Semiconductors are everywhere and in the devices we use every day, as well as in infrastructure like data centers. Although ARM and NVIDIA are not in direct competition, ARM’s portfolio of proprietary technologies is an important entry into NVIDIA products, for example in data centers, automotive and the Internet of Things.
Our analyzes show that the acquisition of ARM by NVIDIA may lead to restricted or degraded access to ARM’s intellectual property, with distorting effects in the various markets where semiconductors are used. Our research aims to ensure that companies operating in Europe continue to have effective access to the technology necessary to produce quality semiconductor products at competitive prices.
Yes, months of waiting to say the water is wet and repeat the same conclusions as the rest of the regulators around the world.
The technical arguments against the ARM-NVIDIA agreement
It is true that if NVIDIA finally manages to get ARM then its portfolio of technologies will become immense and on the level of Intel. If you think about it, AMD’s purchase of Xilinx goes in the same direction, expanding its processes and resources.
Intel bought Altera a few years ago, which has been crucial for the development of intercom technologies. For the same purpose, NVIDIA bought Mellanox and recently AMD acquired Xilinx. But ARM’s purchase is controversial due to the fact that ARM historically has licensed its technology to third parties, both the design of its CPUs and the ISA of its processors.
Many companies make a living from these technologies, which do not have the development capacity of Intel, AMD or NVIDIA and use ARM’s designs and technologies to make their designs. The loss of access to these technologies would have a ripple effect, with a large number of companies falling or forced to negotiate with NVIDIA at a disadvantage.
What is clear is that the world moves forward through trade and Jensen Huang and his management know that the world of hardware is complex and that your competitor is also your cooperator.
