It has been rumored for a bit of time now that SoftBank is looking to sell ARM, the chip designer based out of Britain. And a new report aims to lock down a potential buyer.
According to Bloomberg, Nvidia may be the company that goes through the motions to buy ARM. The chip designer is the company behind the mobile processor found in a lot of different hardware all across the globe, including in Apple devices, as well as Samsung and others. According to the report, Nvidia is currently in “advanced talks” with SoftBank to acquire ARM, and the purchase price is worth more than $32 billion.
If the talks go forward in a positive way, a deal could be reached sometime in “the next few weeks”. However, nothing is set in stone at the moment. Still, the report says that Nvidia is currently the only major player in “concrete” discussions to acquire ARM. If this does go through, it will be one of the biggest deals ever in the chip business.
It would even outpace the purchase of ARM by SoftBank back in 2016, which went for $31 billion. Since then, ARM has become an even more integral part of so many different companies out there, including Apple. Earlier this year, for example, at the all-online Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple officially announced its transition to an ARM-based processor for upcoming Mac computers. And Microsoft has already launched an ARM-based Surface, and has a version of its desktop operating system, Windows, designed for ARM as well.
Nvidia potentially buying ARM makes a lot of sense for the company, and would give it an even stronger position in the computer market. There were, of course, rumors that Apple would buy ARM, but, based on this report, it doesn’t even sound like Apple has moved forward with considerations at the moment. Maybe that changes if the talks with Nvidia don’t go anywhere.