By Joseph Chalfant

Nvidia’s acquisition of the UK chip manufacturer Arm has finally received industry support. 

After the plan was announced in September of 2020, regulatory agencies and competitors lodged complaints that Nvidia’s purchase would enable the company to limit the supply of chips and raise prices. Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm are some of the companies that raised concerns over the acquisition, according to CNBC.

Broadcom, MediaTek, and Marvell announced their support for the $40 billion deal. The companies are now backing the agreement after receiving guarantees from Nvidia that the company will not engage in any anti-competitive behavior.

“Broadcom supports Nvidia’s proposed acquisition of Arm because Nvidia has assured the industry that it will increase the overall investment in Arm’s technology and that it will continue to make that technology available to the industry on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis,” CEO Hock Tan told CNBC.

Nvidia hopes that the acquisition will allow the company to produce a broader range of products, innovate its CPU, DPU, and GPU technology, and even reduce its carbon footprint.

“We are buying Arm because we want to advance computing further. The future of computing is going to move further from the cloud to the edge. That is what Arm is fantastic at. Where we are fantastic is AI. So, imagine the possibilities in putting AI at the edge,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Hueng in a statement.

The deal will allow Arm to retain its name and headquarters in Cambridge, and it will keep all its current customers. Nvidia will provide the joint company with new researchers and will build up an AI research center. The company claims that the facility will hold one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe.

“This is a deal that’s about expanding. It’s about creating new and more technology and putting it in the hands of people who are going to build incredible things with it. It will enable more people to do more things,” said Arm CEO Simon Seagers.

Nvidia will buy the company from SoftBank, which purchased Arm for $31.4 billion in 2016. The deal stipulates that Nvidia must provide SoftBank with at least $21.5 billion in Nvidia stock and $12 billion in cash, with $2 billion paid at signing, according to CNBC.