Nvidia announced a $40 billion deal to buy SoftBank Arm in the largest chip acquisition

Nvidia announced that it has agreed to acquire the chip manufacturer of Softbank Group at a price of 40 billion US dollars, which will be the largest M&A transaction in the history of the chip industry.According to the agreement, Nvidia will pay $21.5 billion worth of Nvidia shares and $12 billion in cash for the UK based chip company, including $2 billion immediately upon signing the contract. The two companies said in a joint statement that Softbank may also receive an additional $5 billion in cash or stock if Arm's future performance meets specific targets. Another $1.5 billion worth of Nvidia shares will be paid to Arm employees. After the completion of the transaction, Softbank is expected to retain less than 10% of the shares of Arm. This transaction has yet to be approved by China, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom. It is estimated that regulatory approval may take up to one and a half years.

Nvidia said that the British company would "continue to operate its open licensing model while maintaining global customer neutrality, which is the basis for its success." Nvidia said that it would add its technology to the products licensed by Arm.

Huang Renxun, CEO of Nvidia, said that he liked the business model of Arm and hoped to expand its broad customer base. As for those who worry that this transaction will damage the relationship between ARM and Apple and other customers, Huang Renxun said that Nvidia spent a lot of money on this acquisition and had no motivation to do anything that would lead to customer deviation.

Nvidia said it would retain the headquarters of Arm in the UK and invest in a new facility there to promote AI research, educate customers and provide a place for robotics and automation experiments. Huang Renxun said that this commitment shows that the acquisition will strengthen rather than weaken Britain's technological strength.