Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is wearing his usual leather jacket.
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LONDON – The British Competition Watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, announced on Wednesday that it intends to investigate Nvidia’s prospective acquisition of the British disc designer Arm.
Nvidia announced plans to buy the company with headquarters in Cambridge from SoftBank for $ 40 billion in September last year, and critics are urging governments and regulators to investigate the deal since then.
The CMA said it was inviting third parties to comment on how the deal would affect competition in the UK before launching a formal inquiry later this year.
“The chip technology industry is worth billions and very important for many of the products we use most in our daily lives,” OBA CEO Andrea Coscelli said in a statement.
“We will work closely with other competition authorities around the world to carefully consider the impact of the agreement and ensure that it does not ultimately lead to consumers getting more expensive or lower quality products,” Coscelli added.
With 6,500 staff, including 3,000 in the UK, Arm is widely regarded as the jewel in the crown of the British technology industry. Its chips have most of the smartphones in the world, as well as many other devices.
Arms chief executive Simon Segars told CNBC in December that he expected regulators to investigate the deal carefully.
“There are regulatory approvals to go through in many jurisdictions around the world,” Segars said last month. “It’s a protracted process. There’s a lot of interaction with the regulators to provide the information they want.”
When the acquisition was announced, Nvidia and Arm said they hoped to complete the deal by early 2022.
Two British technical investors predicted last October that the acquisition would be blocked.
Nvidia did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.