Nvidia, Arm CEOs confident of regulatory approval for US$40 billion deal despite potential Chinese concerns

The CEOs of Nvidia and Arm expressed confidence in getting regulatory approvals for their US$40 billion merger despite Chinese experts expressing doubt that authorities in Beijing will sign off on the deal.

Speaking on Tuesday at the Arm DevSummit 2020 conference, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Arm CEO Simon Segars said the acquisition would create a new platform to drive innovations in the age of artificial intelligence.

“We are confident that it’s going to go through. Regulators around the world would realise that these are two complementary companies,” Huang said, adding that the combined firms would drive innovation and be beneficial to customers.

Segars said regulators would see the deal as positive because it would be “enabling more people to do more things”.

However, he said regulatory scrutiny of the deal was “going to take a while” given the dominant roles both companies play in the industry. “There is a process to go through … but we will get to the end of that,” Segars said.

During their 20 minute discussion, which was online, Huang and Segars did not mention any regulators by name. Chinese regulators are seen by some analysts as a potential obstacle to completing the deal given that relations between China and the US have reached their lowest point in decades after a protracted trade spat morphed into a full blown tech war.