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[Craig of War]

Nvidia Corp. is getting close to buying the chip designer Arm Holdings from SoftBank Group Corp. for more than $40 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The cash-and-stock deal would value Arm in the low $40 billions, the WSJ reported, citing unnamed sources.

As part of the deal, Nvidia would likely be subject to regulatory approvals that would compel the company to continue to licence the ARM architecture to existing customers, but it would still gain access to a treasure trove of IP and engineering talent. That could enable the company to quickly develop custom CPU architectures for its own use, which would then further the company's broadening push into the profit-rich data center market.

In a deal that would undoubtedly change the semiconductor industry for years to come, according to the Wall Street Journal, Nvidia is close to finalizing a deal with SoftBank to purchase ARM Holdings for more than $40 billion in stock and cash. The deal is expected to be officially announced early next week. While the exact terms and final sale price of the deal are unknown, the $40 billion offer would represent a tidy profit for SoftBank, which purchased ARM for $32 billion four years ago.

SoftBank Nears $40 Billion Deal to Sell Arm Holdings to Nvidia

The Japanese technology conglomerate is nearing another big asset sale—of Arm Holdings to Nvidia—that would create a chip-industry powerhouse.

www.wsj.com

Nvidia nears deal to buy chip designer Arm for more than $40 billion, sources say | One America News Network

Breaking News, Latest News and Current News from OANN.com. Breaking news and video. Latest Current News: U.S., World, Entertainment, Health, Business, Technology, Politics, Sports.

www.oann.com

 

[NoviDon]

Something something EMPEROR something something DEATH STAR something something...

 

[Barakov]

Man, what the fuck.....

 

[Cyph3rZA]

Holy Moly.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Their rivals just pooped their britches.

 

[Silver Wattle]

I wonder what Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei etc think about this.

 

[Blond]

Holy fuck this is pretty bad...

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Something something EMPEROR something something DEATH STAR something something...

What?

 

[RoadHazard]

That sounds like it should be stopped by anti-monopoly laws?

 

[NoviDon]

What?

Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away...

 

[bender]

 

[Blond]

What?

If this goes through Nvidia just muscled their way into the entire mobile market and the emerging PC market that's switching to ARM.

 

[Kazekage1981]

how would this effect QUALCOMM and apple silicon considering they use ARM architecture? Paying licensing and royalty fees? None of them get along with NVIDIA

 

[Nikana]

 

[Three]

That sounds like it should be stopped by anti-monopoly laws?

It wouldn’t be. There are giant competitors already (intel and AMD) if anything they can argue that they want to compete on the CPU market just as Intel and AMD are now in the GPU market.

 

[Entroyp]

I wonder what this means for architecture license holders.

 

[diffusionx]

I wonder what Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei etc think about this.

If I was them, I would be thinking it could have been a lot worse. Nvidia designs chips, yes, and so does ARM. Nvidia doesn't really compete against those companies in the ARM CPU market (Tegra flamed out etc.).

The real fear for those companies IMO would be Apple buying them.

 

[hybrid_birth]

I wonder what Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei etc think about this.

After forking over an arm and a leg? Maybe we will find out more of nvidias operations .

Though surgeries are always risky

 

[NoviDon]

 

[Andodalf]

how would this effect QUALCOMM and apple silicon considering they use ARM architecture? Paying licensing and royalty fees? None of them get along with NVIDIA

Nothing, NVidia would almost certainly be forced to maintain the current relationships as a condition for the sale

 

[TyphoonStruggle]

Nvidia...

 

[Insane Metal]

Fuck. This is bad.

 

[FStubbs]

Nothing, NVidia would almost certainly be forced to maintain the current relationships as a condition for the sale

I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further.

EDIT: I wonder though. Isn't ARM just a specification? What's stopping someone like Apple, who plays in their own world anyway, from deciding they'll fork the specification and go their own way to avoid nVIDIA putting the screws to them?

EDIT2: There's no way Tegra is dead with a move like this.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Hopefully at the press conference Jenson is wearing a cloak.

 

[JMarcell]

Why is it bad? Can anyone explain?

 

[FStubbs]

Why is it bad? Can anyone explain?

Imagine McDonald's went and bought the rights to beef. Now Burger King, Hardee's/Carl's Jr, Rally, etc all rely on a product owned by McDonald's.

 

[PhoenixTank]

EDIT: I wonder though. Isn't ARM just a specification? What's stopping someone like Apple, who plays in their own world anyway, from deciding they'll fork the specification and go their own way to avoid nVIDIA putting the screws to them?

Licensing. If this goes ahead I'd expect/hope regulators to force Nvidia to offer similar terms as before... but that is more of a given in Europe.

Why is it bad? Can anyone explain?

It really depends on Nvidia's intentions. ARM the company has essentially acted as an open and guiding hand for the ARM the architecture. Not exactly what Nvidia is known for.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Oof, I wonder if that’s going to be more of a headache than an asset for team green. But I would do the same thing, frankly.

 

[JLB]

This is not good news for the industry.

 

[psorcerer]

Nvidia Corp. is getting close to buying the chip designer Arm Holdings from SoftBank Group Corp. for more than $40 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The cash-and-stock deal would value Arm in the low $40 billions, the WSJ reported, citing unnamed sources.

That's a brilliant move from NV.
The problem is everybody already knows that they are a crappy partner.
Console holders don't want to deal with them.
Mobile manufacturers don't want to deal with them.
Even Google, Facebook, etc. don't want to deal with them and create their own hardware instead.

But for the future of GPU it should become a truly heterogeneous architecture, where CPU is the command processor (essentially Cell architecture, that was too ahead of the time).
ARM command processor + NVidia SIMD/CUDA cores should be a winning combination.

 

[GamerEDM]

Nvidia is only worth 13.29 Billion. How is this even possible?

 

[Myths]

This is even more interesting in that the mobile market is now their opportunity.

 

[Rentahamster]

Nvidia is only worth 13.29 Billion. How is this even possible?

NVIDIA Market Cap

In depth view into NVIDIA Market Cap including historical data from 1999, charts and stats.

ycharts.com

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Nvidia is only worth 13.29 Billion. How is this even possible?

Most of it will stock swap.

 

[NoviDon]

Hopefully at the press conference Jenson is wearing a cloak.

"Execute order NV-66"

 

[VAVA Mk2]

I wonder what Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei etc think about this.

Apple too. Their A-Series chips are derived from ARM-licensed designs.

 

[Bernkastel]

Risc-V needs to take off.

 

[VAVA Mk2]

Hopefully at the press conference Jenson is wearing a cloak.

Jenson is gonna need a shitload of spatulas (more than he already has) to hide AMD holdings behind him during his next video.

 

[Bryank75]

How is Nvidia worth so much?

I mean, Sony makes more than them in income but is only worth a third of what Nvidia is currently at.

Nvidia seem to only have a measly 10.9 billion in cash on hand.

Edit: Ah, here we go.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4369796-nvidia-shares-are-prohibitively-expensive-and-cannot-grow-massive-overvaluation#:~:text=NVIDIA%20is%20a%20prime%20example,of%20NVDA%20are%20relatively%20expensive

.

What I thought the minute I looked at the charts. They are trying to grow because they know they are in a race against the bubble bursting, even if they know taking on that much debt is risky.

 

[Kdad]

I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further.

EDIT: I wonder though. Isn't ARM just a specification? What's stopping someone like Apple, who plays in their own world anyway, from deciding they'll fork the specification and go their own way to avoid nVIDIA putting the screws to them?

EDIT2: There's no way Tegra is dead with a move like this.

Apple has a perpetual licence deal afaik...however, I would expect them to go fully inhouse at some point since that's just Apple's way.

 

[Kdad]

Nvidia is only worth 13.29 Billion. How is this even possible?

Leveraging is cheap.

 

[Bryank75]

Nvidia is only worth 13.29 Billion. How is this even possible?

That is their assets, their market value is 300 billion atm. They are massively overvalued though....

 

[LavitzSlambert]

I thought this was a joke title, then I saw the article. This would be awful for everyone except Nvidia.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Risc-V needs to take off.

No one cares about RISC-V because ARM architecture actually works and is deployed in over 2 billion devices already.

 

[PlayStaytion]

Jensen Huang playing the good guy didn't last longer than we thought.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Also if the only source for technology news you guys have is NeoGAF, then you’ve been in a bubble for the whole year. Nvidia was rumored to be negotiating to buy ARM from Softbank before there was even a pandemic. That’s how long this “news” has already been known by people who actually follow the industry.

 

[Entroyp]

Risc-V needs to take off.

I’ve been waiting for that to happen for a while, I’m losing faith.

 

[Empire Strikes Back]

Does this means ARM chips will get more expensive for no reason?

 

[Guilhermegrg]

This ain't good

 

[DonJuanSchlong]

Wouldn't this directly affect Apple?