Qualcomm wants Consortium to Keep Arm Independent

After the failed NVIDIA-Arm acquisition attempt, which saw regulators burn up NVIDIA’s $66 billion acquisition dreams of the UK chip designer, industry players are now mulling ways to insulate Arm from similar acquisition tactics that could upend the company’s market neutrality. Speaking with the Financial Times, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said he favors a consortium approach to acquiring Arm from parent company SoftBank. The Japanese conglomerate paid around $26 billion for Arm in 2016, and is now planning to capitalize on its investment with an IPO of the UK-based company that’s expected to occur before the end of 2023.

Being a fabless design company, Arm has become one of the de-facto cornerstones for the technology industry. Its processor designs are easily the most ubiquitous worldwide, and can be found in everything from mobile phones (where Qualcomm, Samsung, and other companies’ interests lay) through automotive, IOT, and even the world’s now second-fastest supercomputer, Japan’s Fugaku. Qualcomm’s posture regarding the chip design company has been previously echoed by Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who said he too saw value in an industry-led consortium pooling together resources to acquire Arm from Softbank in a way that would keep the company’s crucial IP at arm’s length from weaponization by any single tech industry player.