How an Nvidia/ARM deal could create the dominant ecosystem for the next computer era

By SemiWiki

September 7, 2020

Over the past few weeks, there have been numerous reports about Nvidia’s overtures to acquire Arm. The news has mostly been obsessed about the $31 billion that Arm’s current owner, Softbank, paid for Arm and whether Nvidia could pay such an eye-watering price to buy this asset. There is also pushback from Herman Hauser who was one of Arm’s earliest backers, raising concerns that Arm’s destiny is vital for Britain’s future, which is an odd concern given that Softbank is a Japanese company. Putting all this aside for a moment, I would like to focus on the strategic importance of such a merger and, if the merger does go through, why this could result in a momentous change in the balance of power in the computer and semiconductor industry and why a combined Nvidia and Arm could truly be a game-changer.

The next strategic inflection point in computing will be the cloud expanding to the edge, involving highly parallel computer architectures connected to hundreds of billions of IoT devices. Nvidia is uniquely positioned to dominate that ecosystem, and if it does indeed acquire ARM within the next few weeks as expected, full control of the ARM architecture will virtually guarantee its dominance.

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