The epic story that is Nvidia’s attempt to acquire British chip designer ARM has found yet more pitfalls. The deal was originally announced back in September 2020 but it has since garnered much interest from ever emerging critical parties.
ARM is a huge deal in the chip making space, providing designs to many of the biggest players in the industry. There’s a lot of fear that Nvidia’s acquisition, as chip maker and competitor to many ARM partners, could lead to rising prices and unfair competition. You can find out more about what this deal means for PC gaming here.
Almost immediately the UK launched an inquiry into the deal, followed by Europe, and more recently the United States. The USA’s claim has even turned into the US Federal Trade Commission filing a lawsuit to block the acquisition. It believes Nvidia owning ARM would give the company too much power, and given everyone else sticking their noses in they’re probably not alone.
But one of the biggest hampers for Nvidia in all of this is time. The company expected to have the deal done and dusted within two years but as new governing bodies want a look in this keeps stretching out. This is on top of Covid, global chip shortages, and of course now the EU antitrust regulators have put a pause on their investigations.
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According to Reuters, The European Commission, which was originally set to have a deadline on its investigations of November 25, has temporarily been halted. It’s reported that this is common activity given the current staff shortages and other global issues, but still things aren’t looking good for Nvidia.
If this deal passes it’ll be not only Nvidia's largest acquisition but potentially one of the biggest chip deals ever. It came about not long after we found out Nvidia had been valued at $251 billion dollars, which was more than Intel for the first time in history. The started out as a $40 billion dollar arrangement that has since been valued even higher, but that still depends on whether or not it even goes ahead.
