Nvidia's acquisition of ARM Holdings may be in trouble as tech companies, including Microsoft, object

In September last year, Nvidia announced its plans to purchase ARM Holdings, the owner of the most popular processor IP in the world, used in everything from smartphones to fridges, to cars to now supercomputers.

That $40 billion deal will, however, need to be ratified by anti-trust officials on 3 continents, and it seems that will not be plain sailing.

Bloomberg reports that a slew of technology companies have raised objection to the sale, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and Qualcomm Inc.  At least one of the objecting companies want the deal killed completely.

Their reasons are not known, but there is a lot of concern in the industry that Nvidia, a chipmaker, intends to give itself an unfair advantage over other companies such as Qualcomm and Apple.

Nvidia has denied that this is a possibility, saying: “As we proceed through the review process, we’re confident that both regulators and customers will see the benefits of our plan to continue Arm’s open licensing model and ensure a transparent, collaborative relationship with Arm’s licensees. Our vision for Arm will help all Arm licensees grow their businesses and expand into new markets.”

With widespread industry opposition and a new, less business-friendly administration in USA, there appears to be a much greater risk that the deal will not be approved. Nvidia shares fell 1.6% in New York trading on Friday.