What is the purpose of Softbank selling ARM to NVIDIA, and what impact will it have on China enterprises?
Recently, there is a heavy news in the global scientific and technological circles, that is, it is rumored that Softbank Group will sell ARM, a British chip architecture design company, to NVIDIA, USA, and the two sides will soon reach an agreement on cash and stock trading, with a transaction amount of about 40 billion US dollars. When this news came out, it caused a lot of heated discussions. ARM is a big company in chip architecture design, and its market share in the field of semiconductor chip design of mobile intelligent devices is almost monopolized. Invista is also a chip manufacturer and one of the largest computer chip companies in the world, with a large market share. If NVIDIA succeeds in acquiring ARM, it will become a giant company in the field of semiconductor chips in the world, and will have more voice, which will have a negative impact on China's scientific and technological enterprises. The reason why soft and hard groups want to sell ARM is that they are short of funds and the capital chain is in trouble. This is also related to Softbank's rapid expansion and unsatisfactory investment in recent years, and Softbank urgently needs funds to return. Moreover, after Softbank acquired ARM, it didn't actually benefit much from it. In addition, the chip industry is chaotic now, and there are many uncertainties in the global chip industry. The United States has unreasonably suppressed some technology companies in China, and political factors have seriously interfered with the market competition system, which has also caused ARM to lose a big technology customer like Huawei, which will undoubtedly hit its economy. Coupled with the impact of the epidemic on the global economy, the United States and Britain will not take care of a foreign company under the control of Softbank, which puts Softbank at a disadvantage and the idea of selling ARM will follow. ARM is a leading company in chip architecture design. With the advantages of superior performance and low energy consumption of its architecture processor, it is almost monopolized in the field of mobile smart chips. Domestic technology companies such as Huawei and ZTE are its customers, and companies such as Apple, Samsung and Qualcomm are also important customers of ARM. ARM can collect a lot of licensing fees and patent fees from these technology companies every year. As an American chip company, NVIDIA has set foot in the chips of computers, automotive intelligent equipment and artificial intelligence equipment, and has a large market share. If NVIDIA buys ARM, it will not only increase its revenue and profit, but also give them more voice in the chip field, further enhancing their monopoly position, so the relevant enterprises may pay them more expensive patent fees. If NVIDIA can buy ARM, it will definitely be bad news for technology companies in China in the short term. After all, many voices are in others' hands, but there are still some variables in the transaction between NVIDIA and ARM, depending on the follow-up. But I believe that the vast number of scientific and technological workers in China will make more efforts to cope with such difficulties and enhance China's independent chip manufacturing capability. Some high-tech achievements recently exhibited by companies such as Huawei and Baidu are very exciting. I believe that in the near future, it will eventually break the monopoly in Europe and America.