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US chip company Nvidia (Huida) acquired British chip design company ARM Holdings for $ 40 billion.
ARM, based in Cambridge, UK, was acquired by Japanese telecoms giant Softbank for $ 32 billion in 2016, and is now changing hands again.
Anmo Holdings is a chip design company established in 1990. It does not produce computer processors, but instead licenses its semiconductor technology to other companies.
Nvidia promised to keep An Mou in the UK, increase employment and retain the ARM brand.
Nvidia CEO Huang Renxun, a Taiwan-born American tech entrepreneur, said ARM’s headquarters will remain in Cambridge.
“We will expand this site, build world-class artificial intelligence research and development facilities, and support development in healthcare, life sciences, robotics, autonomous vehicles and other fields.”
The source told the BBC that the British government will not block the acquisition, but may set conditions for the acquisition.
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Reuters
Taiwan-born American tech entrepreneur Huang Renxun founded NVIDIA in 1993
“The greatest in history”
Under the agreement between SoftBank and Nvidia, Nvidia will pay $ 21.5 billion in stock and $ 12 billion in cash for the Anmo acquisition. After the acquisition, if Anmo’s operations meet certain specific goals, it will pay $ 5 billion in cash or shares going forward.
Nvidia will also issue shares worth $ 1.5 billion to Amou employees.
This acquisition, known as “the largest in the history of semiconductors”, also requires approval from regulatory agencies such as the United Kingdom, China, the European Union and the United States. The entire transaction can take up to 18 months.
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Empty promise
When Japan’s Softbank acquired ARM, it promised that it would guarantee jobs and keep its UK headquarters until September next year.
Sonja Laud, chief investment officer at Legal & General Investment Management, a London-based multinational financial services organization, said Nvidia said they would honor SoftBank’s commitments.
“But SoftBank’s promise is about to expire and the UK is negotiating Brexit again. No one dares to say what the future holds.”
This problem makes people worry about the loss of job opportunities in the UK and the transfer of decision-making power in major tech industries to the U.S. The Labor Party also called on the government to intervene.
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AMADEUS CAPITAL / TUDOR BROWN
Hauser (left) and Brown (right), the two Anmou co-founders, cautioned about the acquisition.
Conflict of interests
The two co-founders of Amou Holdings, Hermann Hauser and Tudor Brown, also said that ARM should remain “neutral” and should not be a subsidiary of NVIDIA.
This is because Nvidia also has its own chips, if Nvidia acquires ARM, there will be a potential conflict of interest for other ARM customers.
Furthermore, they also claimed that if ARM is acquired by a US company, the US government will prevent Chinese companies from using its technology based on the trade conflict between the US and China.
And if ARM becomes a branch of a US company, then it will be under the jurisdiction of the US Foreign Investment Committee. When the time comes, British companies using ARM technology may have trouble dealing with China. .
Chip company
Anmou ARM is a chip design company founded in 1990. ARM does not produce computer processors, but licenses its semiconductor technology to other companies.
An Mou is headquartered in Cambridge, but has offices around the world and a joint venture in Shenzhen, China.
The world’s leading technology companies, including Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Qualcomm, use Amou’s semiconductor technology. Amou claimed that its low-power processor technology has been applied to 180 billion chips.
Sun Zhengyi, founder of Softbank of Japan, once described the Amou acquisition as a “crystal ball” that allows him to know the future direction of the technology industry.
NVIDIA is a high-tech company based on graphics processing units (GPUs). Graphics processors are also called graphics chips or display cores. They are responsible for the operations of graphics, computer games, professional scientific research, machine learning and “mining” of virtual currency, etc. Work is particularly important.
