UK based computer processor creator ARM has been sold for a record £31.2bn to US-based graphics tech firm Nvidia.
If you have a smartphone or any piece of consumer electronics made in the past ten years, chances are it has an ARM processor in it. UK-based tech firm ARM creates microprocessors for everything from embedded IoT devices and smartphones to Nintendo's hand-held game consoles, with over 160 billion chips using its technology shipped worldwide as of February 2020.
The company was bought back in 2016 by Japanese telecoms firm SoftBank Group, which valued the company at £23.4 billion at that time. The firm announced today that it's been bought back US tech giant Nvidia for a total of £31.2bn, making this new sale the largest acquisition of all time in the semiconductor industry.
Nvidia is best known for its consumer and server-based graphics cards, which are used primarily for gaming PCs but have also been used in cryptocurrency mining. The company announced its new line of consumer graphics cards (the RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090) recently, and is poised to make a lot of money this year.
ARM's headquarters will remain in the UK and its brand will be retained, but Nvidia will be hiring more staff and expanding the company's market presence. It wants to focus on building the company's AI capabilities with a new world-class AI research facility, building on ARM's existing expertise developing neural processing units.
