We Thought the Nvidia Arm Takeover Was Dead, and It Is.

In January, we reported that it looked as if Nvidia was backing down from its $40 billion bid to absorb Arm. It looks like the anonymous sources were right on the money, so to speak.

Today, SoftBank - the current owners of Arm - announced that the deal was indeed off [PDF], along with plans to prepare Arm for an initial public offering (IPO) before March 2023. 

Given the recent tip-off that the deal was failing and the widespread condemnation of the initial announcement of the takeover from, well, everyone, it's hardly surprising that it's off.

The Deal Is Off, but What Next?

Apart from the prospect of Arm making an IPO, another notable change coincided with this announcement. Simon Segars, Arm's current CEO, left his post today. Rene Haas, former president of Arm's IP group, will take his place.

Interestingly, Haas used to be Nvidia's Vice President, though this is a coincidence rather than anything significant. It seems highly unlikely that Nvidia can revive such a costly takeover bid at a later date now.

What Does This Mean for Makers?

While this is big news in the financial and business world, it doesn't really mean much for the day-to-day users of Nividia and Arm products. The Nvidia embedded AI kits like the Xavier NX are super powerful and fun to use, and Arm will continue to dominate chip architecture until RISC-V catches up.

It will be interesting to see what happens next for Nividia's own embedded hardware line, though - could we be seeing a RISC-V version of the super-budget-but-amazing Jetson Nano any time soon?

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