Nvidia scraps $40 Billion Deal to acquire British Chip Designer Arm

Graphics chip giant Nvidia is said to have abandoned a $40 billion deal to acquire British chip designer Arm, amid antitrust investigations in the United States and Europe.  

Instead, Nvidia will pay up to $ 1.25 billion to Arm owner SoftBank for not closing the deal. Arm CEO Simon Segars will lose his job to Rene Hass, who ran Nvidia's own Arm business years ago.

In December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit to block Nvidia's $40 billion acquisition of Arm from Softbank on antitrust grounds. The deal has come under close scrutiny from regulators since it was announced last year.

Arm serves as a core supplier of architecture technology to most semiconductor companies. The Arm instruction set is at the core of nearly all mobile processors powering smartphones that use Qualcomm chips.

The FTC has said in a statement that the proposal vertical deal would give one of the largest chip companies control over the computing technology and designs that rival firms rely on to develop their own competing chips.

The company served as a neutral supplier, raising concerns that Nvidia could cut off competitors from essential Arm technology. Some of Nvidia’s processors also use Arm-designed cores and its Arm architecture, although it is best known for graphic processors.