ARM co-founder claims NVIDIA wants to buy ARM to destroy it

For several weeks now, there have been rumors that NVIDIA is in advanced talks to buy SoftBank's ARM division. According to the rumor mill, the acquisition may cost NVIDIA as much as £32 billion ($42 billion), which would definitely be a massive (but still doable) acquisition for NVIDIA. Japan's SoftBank bought ARM in 2016 and has confirmed it's currently looking at options, which may include a sale or an IPO.

Interestingly, ARM co-founder Hermann Hauser doesn't believe NVIDIA's intentions are pure. Hauser believes NVIDIA wants to buy ARM to destroy what it stands for. The co-founder thinks NVIDIA wants it to "swipe the microprocessor crown from Intel" and to become the chip supplier for 95 percent of mobile phones and 90 percent of embedded controllers for the Internet of Things. Under SoftBank, ARM remains a neutral "Switzerland-like" entity, but under a different owner this could change.

Hauser thinks that after acquiring ARM, NVIDIA will ensure that its main competitors can no longer make use of further ARM developments. This will cause current ARM licensees to scramble to find an alternative. In the short-term this may cause disruptions but longer term this would make the future of RISC-V a lot brighter.

In an interview with New States Man, Hauser urges the UK government to step in and provide an alternative route, like assisting ARM to to public again. This opinion is also voiced by Tudor Brown, another ARM co-founder.

“The government can help with, say, a billion or two,” says Hauser. “They’ve spent 500 million on OneWeb, so they ought to be able to spend a billion or two” in order to get Arm “listed on the London Stock Exchange and make it a British company again”.

Hauser says he believes this is unlikely however, because prime minister Boris Johnson is intent on remaining on the right side of president Trump while a post-Brexit trade agreement with the US is still pending.