Nvidia’s takeover of Arm may be slightly tweaked after the former appeared to step back from hiring goals made by the latter.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Nvidia is trying to avoid signing a pledge which would see the number of Arm employees double compared to 2016 figures.
Arm is still saying it’s on target, but in order to complete the mission, it would need to hire “heavily”, until September, the Telegraph report says.
Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang hinted that doing so could be counter-productive, stating, “the type of talent we would like to bring to the UK and invest in the UK, are not that readily available. They’re not a dime a dozen…I will hire as many Einsteins as there are.”
Objections
The hiring issues could potentially halt the entire takeover deal, with the UK government set to deliver its own judgement as well. Nvidia is still negotiating with the government, with a deal isn’t expected this year – but if the agreement appears to be a “threat” to the UK, it may be halted.
“I don’t come across much enthusiasm for this deal in Cambridge,” commented Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge. “There is a genuine worry about jobs going from Cambridge.” Nvidia promised to keep Arm’s headquartered in Cambridge. “We would still want binding commitments – we need some kind of guarantee before we can welcome this deal.”
But the government is not the only issue Nvidia should worry about, as several other tech giants have voiced their concerns about the deal as well.
Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm have all raised objections to the takeover, saying that Nvidia could change parts of the Arm ecosystem to benefit itself at the expense of other Arm customers. Besides these three, Apple, Samsung, MediaTek, Huawei, and many other companies rely on Arm chips for their products.
Nvidia has said it planned on keeping Arm’s open business model in the future.
Via Daily Telegraph
