The U.K. has recently launched an in-depth antitrust investigation into Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm.
Digital and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries on Tuesday ordered the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to conduct a thorough investigation in light of the findings that the deal has created problems that revolve around fair competition.
These initial findings are part of an earlier investigation by the CMA, which concluded that the deal could significantly reduce competition in data centers, IoT, automotive and gaming applications.
The CMA expressed deep concern that Nvidia would restrict access to Arm IP, which could lead to rising prices and reduced competition.
Regulators and the private sector are concerned about the deal, as Arms IP is used by several companies to manufacture chips and related products that rival those of Nvidia, including Intel, Qualcomm, AMD and Xilinx.
Last September, Nvidia announced its intention to purchase Arm from Softbank. At that time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the two companies would be “completely complementary.”
“Our intention is to combine the engineering and the tech — the R&D capacity of both companies so that we can accelerate the development of technology for Arm’s vast ecosystem, and one of the areas … that we’re very interested in, is to accelerate the development of server CPUs.”
The second phase of the investigation is expected to be completed in 24 weeks.