Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, told CNBC on Thursday that he is confident in the growth story of the company, even if the potential acquisition of British disk designer Arm will not happen.
“Nvidia is going to be big, no matter what,” Huang told Mad Money in response to a question from Jim Cramer, the show’s presenter. Cramer asked the CEO how investors should think about Nvidia in the long run, while the $ 40 billion deal to buy Arm owned by Softbank is pending.
Several companies across the tech landscape, including California-based chipmaker Qualcomm and Microsoft, have reportedly told the Federal Trade Commission that they are concerned that the Nvidia-Arm deal could harm competition. The FTC, the U.S. antitrust regulator, has opened an “in-depth investigation” into the acquisition, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.
Nvidia, known for its graphics chips for games, first announced the deal in September. Shortly after it was announced, Cramer told “Mad Money” viewers that if “Nvidia can close Arm Holdings, the stock will be unstoppable, even after its amazing multi-year run.”
Nvidia’s share has risen 103% over the past 12 months, compared to a gain of 22.4% for the S&P 500. Over the past five years, the disc maker’s shares have risen by almost 1,600%.
Huang said on Thursday that Nvidia’s chips remain at the core of numerous disruptive technologies, keeping its secular tailwinds in step. A day earlier, the company reported quarterly sales of $ 5 billion, representing a year-over-year growth of 61%. Both revenue and earnings exceeded Wall Street expectations.
“The growth opportunity we have ahead for artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, manufacturing, industrial robotics, 5G edge, these applications are going to make us a very large company,” said Huang, who founded Nvidia in California in 1993. “I think our growth path is very exciting … We expect it to be a good growth year for the data center, and it’s all independent of Arm,” Huang added.
At the same time, Huang also tried to defend Nvidia’s desire to buy Arm, which is known for designing the chip architecture used in most of the world’s mobile phones.
“We will be able to inject so much exciting and so much engineering scale into Arm to accelerate their roadmap, which is going to love the ecosystem,” he said, adding, “We are going to make this deal. I am very confident in it.”
Last year, Nvidia completed a $ 7 billion acquisition of chip maker Mellanox Technologies. It took more than 13 months to complete when Chinese regulators investigated the deal.
Shares in Nvidia closed up more than 8% on Thursday, which was a difficult session for many technology companies as investors consumed the rising bond yields.
Disclosure: Cramer’s charity owns shares in Nvidia.