Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm worried over Nvidia's Arm acquisition

Washington: American tech giants Microsoft, Google, and Qualcomm have reportedly raised concerns to regulators in the US, EU, UK, and China, over Nvidia's acquisition of Arm.

According to The Verge, the companies have approached regulators with concerns that Nvidia could change how Arm licenses out its chipmaking technology. Nvidia has pledged that it would not be using its control over the company to change how it interacts with other businesses.

Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement that he could "unequivocally state that Nvidia will maintain Arm`s open licensing model. We have no intention to 'throttle' or 'deny' Arm's supply to any customer.

"However, the rivals of Nvidia put up the argument that keeping Arm neutral and not using its tech to Nvidia's own gains is not what the company would be incentivised to do after paying USD 40 billion for it. The restrictions on licensing would hurt other companies that benefit from having the ability to license Arm's technology.

Nvidia has argued that this acquisition is about driving the company's AI capabilities forward, which is an area Nvidia has focused on heavily, from its machine learning-powered upscaling on its graphics cards to its work in self-driving cars. Arm's low-power technology could help Nvidia spread AI into more places.

Meanwhile, UK and EU officials have promised to "thoroughly investigate" the deal. As per The Verge, it`s very likely that they will hear many objections, not just from Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm, but from others in the chipmaking industry who are concerned about their open-licensing agreement with Arm being affected by the merger.

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