A report surfaced Monday that Qualcomm would be interested in investing in Arm if its $40 billion sale to Nvidia gets blocked by regulators.
Qualcomm’s incoming CEO Cristian Amon told The Telegraph newspaper that “there is a lot of interest from a lot of companies within the ecosystem, including Qualomm, to invest in Arm.”
He added: “If it moves out of SoftBank and it goes into a process of becoming a publicly-traded company [with] a consortium of companies that invest, including many of its customers, I think those are great possibilities.”
Amon said he has had discussions with other companies that feel the same.
Nvidia said in response to Amon’s comments that Arm needs more than an IPO to thrive. “Arm needs an infusion of new technology that it can provide to Arm licensees everywhere, which is why we stepped up and agreed to buy Arm,” a spokesperson said. “Our technologies and Qualcomm’s are highly complementary—we’d welcome Qualcomm’s help in creating new technology and products for the entire Arm ecosystem.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly assured investors and others that the deal, first announced last September, will be approved by regulators. Qualcomm, Microsoft and Google have all opposed the deal.
Arm chip architectures are used in 95% of the world’s smartphones, including in chips made and sold by Qualcomm. Arm has more than 500 chip licensees.
Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, said it makes little sense for Qualcomm to buy Arm or become a majority investor. “I can’t see Qualcomm buying Arm being approved by any regulatory agency,” he said. “Nor would Arm licensees, especially big ones like Samsung and Huawei, be very pleased. Qualcomm already dominates the Arm ecosystem in mobile, so to own Arm would likely be seen as anticompetitive by many regulators.”
If Qualcomm were a minority investor in Arm, Qualcomm would be much less likely to fully influence the direction of Arm, but its success before regulators would also depend on who the other partners and investors would be, Gold said.
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