Initial concerns include chip makers have less access to Arm IP and Arm being refocussed to Nvidia products.
The European Commission announced on Wednesday it has opened an in-depth investigation into the $40 billion purchase of Arm by Nvidia. The commission said it was concerned that Nvidia would restrict access to Arm IP, and would lead to higher prices and lessened competition, following its initial investigation. It added that Nvidia has filed commitments that met some of its preliminary concerns, but these were not enough to « clearly dismiss its serious doubts ». Specifically, the commission said it was concerned about the impact of the transaction on data centre CPUs, smart interconnects, chips in car infotainment and driver-assistance systems, high-performance IoT devices, gaming consoles, and PCs. The deeper investigation would look at whether Arm licensees would be less likely to continue sharing commercially sensitive information with Arm if they competed with Nvidia, and whether Nvidia would refocus Arm research into profitable areas of Nvidia’s portfolio.
