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Nadine Dorries, the digital secretary, has ordered an in-depth probe into the $40bn planned takeover of Britain’s Arm Holdings by America’s Nvidia – on national security as well as competition grounds.
Cambridge-based Arm designs chips licensed for use across global industry with customers including Apple, Samsung and Intel.
Its current owner, the Japanese conglomerate Softbank, agreed last September to sell it to Nvidia.
But an initial investigation by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reported earlier this year that the deal could weaken rivals and stifle innovation and recommended that it should be more closely examined in a “phase two” probe.
The CMA said the takeover may ultimately mean more expensive or lower quality products in cutting edge technologies such a gaming, data centres, the “internet of things” and self-driving cars.
Arm occupies a key position at the heart of the global semiconductor industry and more than 200 billion chips have been sold based on its technology.
Nvidia, which makes graphic and AI chips, is a rival to some other companies that also use Arm’s technology – one cause for concern over the deal.
In addition to the CMA investigation, Britain’s department for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) has also been gathering evidence from across government over national security concerns.
It said: “The chips, based on Arm’s intellectual property, power smartphones and are contained in a considerable proportion of connected devices within homes, cars and businesses.
SoftBank has agreed to sell Arm
“While not all individual devices relying on Arm-based chips are necessarily classed as ‘critical’ in themselves, the security and resilience of the broader supply chain is important for UK national security.”
Ms…
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Source : skynews
