UK and EU open probe into Nvidia's acquisition of Arm

The UK and European Union are set to open an in-depth competition investigation into the $40bn acquisition of Arm by US chipmaker Nvidia.

The acquisition of the British chip designer is a concern as some companies that rely on Arm's technology fear they could be disadvantaged once it is owned by competitor Nvidia.

Some rivals were therefore calling for the deal to be blocked.

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive denied the claims and told the Financial Times: "I can unequivocally state that Nvidia will maintain Arm’s open licensing model. We have no intention to ‘throttle’ or ‘deny’ Arm’s supply to any customer."

According to the FT, officials and advisers in both Brussels and the UK said that the investigation was warranted, given the growing importance of Arm’s designs, which are used in almost all smartphone processors as well as many other devices running on low-power chips.

“This deal will be thoroughly investigated [ . . . ] and scrutiny may lead all the way to a prohibition,” said one person close to the situation.

The UK government is also concerned about risks to national security, after the digital, culture, media and sport secretary, Oliver Dowden, came under pressure to intervene in the deal.

The deal was announced last September and it is still in early stages. The acquisition could also face scrutiny in the US and China.