AMD secures EU antitrust approval for $35bn Xilinx acquisition

Advanced Micro Devices, the semiconductor designer, secured EU antitrust approval to go ahead with its $35bn acquisition of Xilinx.

AMD announced the deal in October 2020, intensifying its battle with chief rival Intel Corp in the data center chip market.

The European Commission said on Thursday that it had not found any issues after a preliminary review.

"The proposed transaction would raise no competition concerns in the European Economic Area given the absence of horizontal overlaps and vertical relationships between the activities of the companies," the EU competition enforcer said.

According to the EU, the merged company, after the deal is closed, will not have the incentive to foreclose rival providers of central processing units and graphics processing units and the presence of alternative suppliers.