UK orders further investigation of Nvidia's takeover of Arm

"Arm has a unique place in the global technology supply chain and we must make sure the implications of this transaction are fully considered. The CMA will now report to me on competition and national security grounds and provide advice on the next steps." the Digital Secretary states in a press release The CMA will now lead the Phase Two investigation covering both competition and national security. It will have 24 weeks, which can be extended with another eight weeks, to conduct this investigation and deliver a final report to the Digital Secretary. The USD 40 billion deal sparked backlash within the industry as soon as it became official. One of the more vocal parties has been Arm-cofounder, Hermann Hauser, who called the deal a disaster and said that it should be blocked. Concerns have mainly centered around the sanctity of Arm’s open-licensing model, which SoftBank has maintained and thus allowed the company to keep its neutral stance on the market. The fear is that the Nvidia deal will risk the destruction of Arm’s business model as “the Switzerland of the semiconductor industry,” Hauser told Reuters in a previous interview.