Nvidia boss Jensen Huang in 2017. -

Chiang Ying-ying / AP / SIPA

While all eyes are on TikTok, Nvidia surprised on Monday.

The graphics card giant, which has big ambitions on the AI ​​front, has announced that it will buy the leader in smartphone chips ARM from the Japanese group SoftBank for the tidy sum of 40 billion dollars.

This mega-acquisition is expected to be finalized by March 2022, subject to the approval of many regulatory authorities around the world, including the UK, who view the change in ownership of this national technological gem with suspicion.

The UK government has argued that it is aware of ARM's "vital role in the technology sector" and the economy in the UK.

He is studying this transaction “including its impact on Cambridge head office”, with the possibility of “taking appropriate action”.

One of ARM's co-founders, Hermann Hauser, said he was "extremely worried" about the company's passage under the American flag when it is "the last remaining in the United Kingdom with a position dominant in mobile telephony and microprocessors ”.

Endangered partnerships

The takeover would, according to him, only worsen the domination of American technology, as shown by the power of giants like Apple, Amazon or Facebook.

"The sale of ARM to Nvidia will destroy its business model: to be the" Switzerland of the microprocessor sector "by acting equally towards its 500 license holders, Mr. Hauser said in a letter to the Prime Minister.

However, "most of them are competitors of Nvidia" and several are British companies, notes Mr. Hauser.

Without giving any guarantees on the 3,000 employees in the United Kingdom (out of 6,500 in the world), Nvidia promises to keep ARM's headquarters in Cambridge and wants to build an “artificial intelligence supercomputer” as well as its “hub”. European ”.

The boss of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, also assured in a letter to his employees that he would "maintain the neutrality" of ARM vis-à-vis its customers as well as its open license model.

Dazzling rise

Founded in 1990 in England, ARM is a microprocessor specialist with an overwhelming global market share in smartphones (95%).

But its chips, manufactured under license, are also found in countless sensors, connected objects and Cloud services (remote computing).

Nvidia is paying a high price to ramp up in artificial intelligence, connected objects and 5G, ARM's strengths.

It is one of the largest global mergers and acquisitions announced since the start of the year and one of the largest ever in the microprocessor sector, and which propels Nvidia to the rank of juggernaut in the sector.

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