Nvidia → Arm Holdings

A $40bn cash-and-stock agreement to buy the chip-design licensor from SoftBank, terminated in February 2022 after the FTC sued and the EU and UK opened in-depth reviews; SoftBank kept a $1.25bn prepayment and listed Arm instead.

Terminated in February 2022 after FTC, EU and UK opposition, with SoftBank retaining a $1.25bn prepayment.

Value

$40B

Announced

September 2020

Outcome

Terminated

Sector

Technology

Deal type

acquisition

Acquirer

Nvidia (United States)

Target

Arm Holdings (United Kingdom)

Why it mattered

Arm designs the processor cores in nearly every phone and a growing share of servers and licenses them to everyone — Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Amazon and Nvidia itself. Nvidia's plan to own the supplier its competitors depended on was the largest semiconductor deal ever proposed, and the objection to it was structural rather than about price: an Arm owned by one licensee could favour that licensee, and every other customer said so to the regulators.

The eighteen months between announcement and termination coincided with Nvidia's rise from a graphics company to the supplier of the AI industry's compute, which made the concern sharper. The FTC's suit in December 2021 argued the deal would let Nvidia stifle competing designs for data-centre and automotive chips; the UK's CMA had raised national-security as well as competition grounds. Nvidia gave up before any court ruled.

What it left behind

Arm's IPO in September 2023 at a $54bn valuation — more than Nvidia had agreed to pay — with SoftBank keeping 90%; a $1.25bn break payment that SoftBank booked as income; and the clearest precedent that a vertical acquisition of a neutral supplier will be blocked when the supplier's customers are the buyer's competitors. Every AI-infrastructure deal since has been drafted with this one in mind.