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As a first step, it is terrific that the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) is to probe whether the deal threatens competition in chip design.
The Arm model of licensing software for chips rests on open access. Nvidia has a narrower distribution model, which gives exclusive access to its chips and technology to a chosen cluster of customers.
The CMA will be looking at whether the transaction would lead Arm to withdraw from some markets, raise prices or damage the intellectual property.
The enterprise’s co-founder Hermann Hauser argues the Nvidia deal ‘would destroy Arm’s business model as the Switzerland of the semiconductor industry’.