US chip giant Qualcomm is open to the idea of investing in UK-chip designer Arm if the company’s $40 billion sale to Nvidia is blocked by regulators.
Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s incoming CEO, told The Telegraph that the company would be willing to buy a stake in Arm alongside other industry investors if SoftBank, Arm’s current owner, listed the company on the stock market instead of selling it to Nvidia.
“If Arm has an independent future, I think you will find there is a lot of interest from a lot of the companies within the ecosystem, including Qualcomm, to invest in Arm,” Amon said. “If it moves out of SoftBank and it goes into a process of becoming of publicly-traded company, with a consortium of companies that invest, including many of its customers, I think those are great possibilities.” He highlighted that the company would definitely be open to it and that it has had discussions with other companies that feel the same way.
However, a Nvidia spokesperson told CNBC that Armo needed more than an IPO if it is to achieve its full potential. “Arm needs an infusion of new technology that it can provide to Arm licensees everywhere, which is why we stepped up and agreed to buy Arm,” they said. “Our technologies and Qualcomm’s are highly complementary, we’d welcome Qualcomm’s help in creating new technologies and products for the entire Arm ecosystem.”
According to Bloomberg, Arm’s takeover by Nvidia was announced by companies last September and was expected to take around 18 months to go through. Since then, Qualcomm has been telling regulators around the world that it is against the deal – so have Microsoft and Google.
The companies are against the takeover because there is a risk that Nvidia could become a gatekeeper of Arm’s technology and prevent other chipmakers from using the company’s intellectual property. They have raised concerns whether Nvidia will be able to fully capitalize on the acquisition without blocking access to Arm’s chip designs. But Nvidia maintains it will be Arm’s open licensing model and invest heavily in its headquarters in Cambridge, UK.
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However, reports state that the Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and China’s State Administration for Market Regulation are all in the process of investigating the deal. Notedly, Arm has a joint venture called Arm China with Chinese private equity firm Hopu Investments. As such, Nvidia has asked Chinese regulators to approve the deal in recent weeks.
