It looks like NVIDIA’s acquisition of Arm Holdings Plc from Japan’s SoftBank, has hit its biggest regulatory hurdle, with the European Commission, the apex executive body of the European Union, deliberating on whether the deal requires a thorough investigation lasting 4 months. Reuters reports that NVIDIA offered the Commission certain "concessions," which may affect the way Arm operates under NVIDIA. The Commission did not disclose these concessions, but mentioned that it will take until October 27 to decide whether or not they merit further investigation.
NVIDIA’s Arm acquisition has split the Arm licensee industry along the median. The likes of Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung, have voiced serious concerns over the deal. They fear that as a high-performance SoC designer itself, NVIDIA will withhold the most advanced bits of the Arm IP to itself, giving it a competitive edge over licensees. Not all companies see it this way, with Broadcom, MediaTek, and Marvell openly endorsing the deal. It’s interesting to note here, that Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm, make faster smartphone SoCs than MediaTek, Broadcom, and Marvell (and their subsidiaries) do.
