A few weeks ago it was confirmed that NVIDIA was buying the company ARM from the investment bank SoftBank. This purchase, among others, gives NVIDIA the possibility to launch commercial processors or create a closed ecosystem in the server market. But this important operation could now be hanging by a thread and it is that China seems to want to veto this purchase due to the trade war with the United States.
China is very pissed off by the actions of the United States against Huawei and more recently against TikTok. The trade war between the two countries could end in the cancellation of the agreement between NVIDIA and SoftBank for ARM. It is speculated that China wants to use this agreement for its own benefit and reduce the trade bottleneck.
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NVIDIA's purchase of ARM could be used by China
The United States is currently trying to prevent China from accessing as much technology as possible. The reason is very simple: China in this decade could surpass the United States as the richest nation in the world. Trump wants to prevent this with accusations that are not supported by any evidence. So China wants to fight back and one of its assets would be the purchase of ARM by NVIDIA.
Ni Guangnan, a former Lenovo Chief Engineer, says China's position would be to use the antitrust trick. This deal could create a monopoly on chip design, according to Guangnan.
But beyond this the thing is in the concern that ARM becomes a division of an American company. This implies that if NVIDIA takes over ARM, the latter's intellectual property would be subject to US regulation. Consequently, it would become subject to export control.
China could bring to the table the recent blocks to Huawei and SMIC, as well as the attempted blockade of TikTok. In China, there are about 200 active ARM licenses representing 19.000 billion chips based on ARM designs until September 2020.
[irp]Source: TPU
