The UK Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has found that the acquisition of UK chip designer Arm by US company Nvidia raises serious competition concerns.
The CMA has decided that at in-depth investigation of the deal is needed on competition grounds. It is concerned that the merged group could harm the competitiveness of Nvidia's rivals by restricting access to Arm's intellectual property (IP), which is used by firms making semiconductor chips in competition with Nvidia. It is concerned that any loss of competition could stifle market innovation across several areas including gaming, data centres, IoT and self-driving cars. The CMA rejected a behavioural remedy proposed by Nvidia, and has now referred the merger for an in-depth Phase 2 investigation.
