Graphcore objects to Nvidia-Arm takeover

Graphcore has objected to Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm, says Hermann Hauser (pictured) who helped found both Arm and Graphcore.

Graphcore has made its objection to the UK Competition and Markets Authority.

“If Nvidia can merge the Arm and Nvidia designs in the same software then that locks out companies like Graphcore from entering the seller market and entering a close relationship with Arm,” Hauser told CNBC.

Before Christmas, Nigel Toon, Graphcore’s CEO, said the Nvidia takeover “risks closing down or limiting other companies’ access to leading edge CPU processor designs.”

Hauser was CEO of Acorn when it spun off Arm in 1990 and also backed Graphcore through his VC firm Amadeus Capital.

“If you think about the situation Nvidia is in, Nvidia is the one company that would profit from spending $40 billion on destroying a company,” said Hauser.

Graphcore is directly competing with Nvidia for the data centre processor market.