Graphics card specialist Nvidia has ditched its plans to buy UK chip firm Arm.
In a notice to investors, the GPU company said that it was terminating the deal due to “significant regulatory challenges.” This basically means that governments around the world weren’t likely to let the deal pass due to antitrust rules. Current owner SoftBank says that it will be beginning plans to take Arm public by the end of the 2022/23 financial year.
“Arm has a bright future, and we’ll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come,” Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (pictured) said.
“Arm is at the centre of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son added: “Arm is becoming a center of innovation not only in the mobile phone revolution, but also in cloud computing, automotive, the Internet of Things and the metaverse, and has entered its second growth phase. We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress.”
“I want to thank Jensen and his talented team at Nvidia for trying to bring together these two great companies and wish them all the success.”