NVIDIA's Arm acquisition called off

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group (SBG) have terminated a previously-announced transaction* whereby NVIDIA would acquire Arm from SBG due to significant regulatory challenges preventing the consummation of the transaction, despite good faith efforts by the parties.

“Arm has a bright future, and we’ll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

“Arm is at the centre of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”

Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. (Masa) thanked Huang and his team at NVIDIA for trying to bring the two companies together and wished them every success.

In accordance with the terms of the agreement, SBG will retain the US$1.25 billion prepaid by NVIDIA, which will be recorded as profit in the fourth quarter, and NVIDIA will retain its 20-year Arm license. SBG also stated that 24.99% of Arm shares are attributable to SoftBank Vision Fund 1.

SBG also announced that, in coordination with Arm, it will start preparations for a public offering of Arm within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. SBG believes Arm’s technology and intellectual property will continue to be at the centre of mobile computing and the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

“Arm is becoming a centre of innovation not only in the mobile phone revolution, but also in cloud computing, automotive, the Internet of Things and the metaverse, and has entered its second growth phase,” said Son.

“We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress.” 

*NVIDIA and SBG had announced that they had entered into a definitive agreement, under which NVIDIA would acquire Arm from SoftBank, on September 13, 2020.