Nvidia said it agreed to buy SoftBank’s chip division Arm for $40 billion (Dh147bn), taking control of some of the most widely used electronics technology in the semiconductor industry’s largest-ever deal.
Nvidia will pay $21.5bn in stock and $12bn in cash for the UK-based chip designer, including a $2bn payment at signing. SoftBank may receive an additional $5bn in cash or stock if Arm’s performance meets certain targets, the companies said Sunday in a statement. An additional $1.5bn will be paid to Arm employees in Nvidia stock.
SoftBank shares surged as much as 10 per cent on news of the deal and renewed talks for the company going private.
Arm’s importance far outweighs its revenue, which comes from licensing chip fundamentals and selling processor designs. Its technology is at the heart of the more than 1 billion smartphones sold annually. Chips that use its code and its layouts are in everything from factory equipment to home electronics.
“It’s a company with reach that’s just unlike any company in the history of technology,” Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said in an interview. “We’re uniting Nvidia’s leading AI computing with Arm’s vast ecosystem.”
The acquisition is fueled by the drive to bring artificial intelligence to everything that has an on-switch, the chief executive said. Having succeeded in selling Nvidia’s graphics chips to owners of data centers to speed up image recognition and language processing, Mr Huang is looking to make sure his technology helps spread that to everything from self-driving vehicles to smart meters.
The initial payment from Nvidia marks a small premium over the $31.4bn that SoftBank paid to acquire Arm in 2016, previously the semiconductor industry’s biggest deal. The Japanese company is expected to own less than 10 per cent of Nvidia following the transaction, according to the statement.
Regulatory approvals may well prove challenging. The companies said sign-offs are needed from China, UK, European Union and US authorities and may take as long as 18 months. China’s approval may be particularly difficult given rising tensions with the US.
“Now Arm will become a US firm, and the conflict over semiconductors between the US and China is becoming fierce as China still controls Arm China,” said Koji Hirai, head of M&A advisory firm Kachitas in Tokyo.
In comments after the deal announcement, Mr Huang said his team “fully expect to spend time with the regulatory bodies in China,” but have every confidence in getting approval for the takeover.
Another major concern is whether the acquisition will upset Arm’s relationships with customers like Apple and Intel. The chip designer has been able to work with a broad range of partners in part because it didn’t compete with them.
“We would imagine the bulk of Arm’s current licensees will be (no pun intended) up in arms,” Sanford C. Bernstein analysts including Stacy Rasgon wrote in reaction to the news.
Mr Huang said he will preserve Arm’s neutrality and wants to expand its client list. He argued Nvidia is spending a lot of money for the acquisition and has no incentive to do anything that would cause clients to walk away.
Nvidia said the UK company will “continue to operate its open-licensing model while maintaining the global customer neutrality that has been foundational to its success.” Nvidia will add its technology to the offerings licensed by Arm, the Santa Clara, California-based company said.
Under Mr Huang, Nvidia has risen rapidly up the ranks of technology companies in market value and influence. Already the dominant force in graphics chips that make video games more realistic, Nvidia has carved out a slice of the market for data center chips and is moving into self-driving vehicles.
Cambridge, UK-based Arm has created a successful niche for itself by being independent. Fierce rivals such as Apple, Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm, Broadcom and Huawei are all licensees. They either use Arm’s designs as the basis of their own chips or license its instruction set, the fundamental code used by processors to communicate with software, for proprietary efforts.
The acquisition by Nvidia, also a licensee, is a challenge to that neutrality. SoftBank’s purchase four years ago went ahead largely uncontested because the Japanese company wasn’t a competitor to any of Arm’s customers.
One client that will be directly challenged is Intel. Mr Huang said a priority will be investing in Arm’s efforts to design chips for data-center computing.
While he’s carved out a $3bn niche in the business of supplying Alphabet’s Google and Facebook with graphics processors that help with their artificial intelligence workloads, Mr Huang said he wants to speed up the adoption of Arm-based central processors, or CPUs. That’s a lucrative market dominated by Intel, which has about 90 per cent share.
Nvidia announced it will keep Arm’s headquarters in the UK and will invest in a new facility there to push forward AI research, educate customers and provide a place for experimentation in robotics and automation. Mr Huang said that commitment demonstrates how the acquisition will add to the UK’s technology footprint rather than detracting from it.
SoftBank’s sale of Arm unwinds another strategic investment in favor of boosting liquidity and enabling founder Masayoshi Son to focus on the more tactical investing he has said he wants to pursue.
Nvidia’s Mr Huang runs a company that’s captured the attention of investors like few others in the past decade. Like Mr Son, he’s a charismatic leader espousing a long-term vision of where technology is headed. The Taiwan-born entrepreneur is more engineering-focused than his Japanese counterpart, though, and often publicly delves into the minutiae of semiconductor and computer science.
His latest successful recasting of Nvidia’s technology involves the processing of AI work done in data centers. The company’s chips are among the best at breaking up the manipulation of data into small pieces and then executing that in parallel at high speed.
Mr Huang will also get a large footprint in the mobile industry and smartphones. A previous attempt by Nvidia to break Qualcomm’s dominance of that business failed.
The biggest rival to Qualcomm in smartphone processors is Apple’s internal effort. Those two companies are among Arm’s biggest customers.
Even without a presence in mobile, Nvidia’s value has soared in the past decade. The stock, which ended 2010 at $15.42 a share, closed Friday at $486.58. That’s given it a market value of just over $300bn, almost $100bn more than Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker with seven times the revenue of Nvidia.
The specs: 2018 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy
Price, base / as tested Dh97,600
Engine 1,745cc Milwaukee-Eight v-twin engine
Transmission Six-speed gearbox
Power 78hp @ 5,250rpm
Torque 145Nm @ 3,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 5.0L / 100km (estimate)
If you go
The flights
Emirates (www.emirates.com) and Etihad (www.etihad.com) both fly direct to Bengaluru, with return fares from Dh 1240. From Bengaluru airport, Coorg is a five-hour drive by car.
The hotels
The Tamara (www.thetamara.com) is located inside a working coffee plantation and offers individual villas with sprawling views of the hills (tariff from Dh1,300, including taxes and breakfast).
When to go
Coorg is an all-year destination, with the peak season for travel extending from the cooler months between October and March.
Results
5pm: Wadi Nagab – Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,200m; Winner: Al Falaq, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Ahmed Al Shemaili (trainer)
5.30pm: Wadi Sidr – Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m; Winner: AF Majalis, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
6pm: Wathba Stallions Cup – Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: AF Fakhama, Fernando Jara, Mohamed Daggash
6.30pm: Wadi Shees – Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: Mutaqadim, Antonio Fresu, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
7pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-1 – Listed (PA) Dh230,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Bahar Muscat, Antonio Fresu, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
7.30pm: Wadi Tayyibah – Maiden (TB) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Poster Paint, Patrick Cosgrave, Bhupat Seemar
Hydrogen: Market potential
Hydrogen has an estimated $11 trillion market potential, according to Bank of America Securities and is expected to generate $2.5tn in direct revenues and $11tn of indirect infrastructure by 2050 as its production increases six-fold.
"We believe we are reaching the point of harnessing the element that comprises 90 per cent of the universe, effectively and economically,” the bank said in a recent report.
Falling costs of renewable energy and electrolysers used in green hydrogen production is one of the main catalysts for the increasingly bullish sentiment over the element.
The cost of electrolysers used in green hydrogen production has halved over the last five years and will fall to 60 to 90 per cent by the end of the decade, acceding to Haim Israel, equity strategist at Merrill Lynch. A global focus on decarbonisation and sustainability is also a big driver in its development.
RESULTS
6.30pm UAE 1000 Guineas Trial Conditions (TB) US$100,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
Winner Final Song, Christophe Soumillon (jockey), Saeed bin Suroor (trainer).
7.05pm Handicap (TB) $135,000 (Turf) 1,000m
Winner Almanaara, Dane O’Neill, Doug Watson.
7.40pm Handicap (TB) $175,000 (D) 1,900m
Winner Grand Argentier, Brett Doyle, Doug Watson.
8.15pm Meydan Challenge Listed Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner Major Partnership, Patrick Cosgrave, Saeed bin Suroor.
8.50pm Dubai Stakes Group 3 (TB) $200,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner Gladiator King, Mickael Barzalona, Satish Seemar.
9.25pm Dubai Racing Club Classic Listed Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 2,410m
Winner Universal Order, Richard Mullen, David Simcock.
If you go...
Etihad Airways flies from Abu Dhabi to Kuala Lumpur, from about Dh3,600. Air Asia currently flies from Kuala Lumpur to Terengganu, with Berjaya Hotels & Resorts planning to launch direct chartered flights to Redang Island in the near future. Rooms at The Taaras Beach and Spa Resort start from 680RM (Dh597).
Company%C2%A0profile
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How Alia's experiment will help humans get to Mars
Alia’s winning experiment examined how genes might change under the stresses caused by being in space, such as cosmic radiation and microgravity.
Her samples were placed in a machine on board the International Space Station. called a miniPCR thermal cycler, which can copy DNA multiple times.
After the samples were examined on return to Earth, scientists were able to successfully detect changes caused by being in space in the way DNA transmits instructions through proteins and other molecules in living organisms.
Although Alia’s samples were taken from nematode worms, the results have much bigger long term applications, especially for human space flight and long term missions, such as to Mars.
It also means that the first DNA experiments using human genomes can now be carried out on the ISS.
How does ToTok work?
The calling app is available to download on Google Play and Apple App Store
To successfully install ToTok, users are asked to enter their phone number and then create a nickname.
The app then gives users the option add their existing phone contacts, allowing them to immediately contact people also using the application by video or voice call or via message.
Users can also invite other contacts to download ToTok to allow them to make contact through the app.
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
Dhadak
Director: Shashank Khaitan
Starring: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khattar, Ashutosh Rana
Stars: 3
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
RESULT
West Brom 2 Liverpool 2
West Brom: Livermore (79'), Rondón (88' )
Liverpool: Ings (4'), Salah (72')
Newcastle United 0 Tottenham Hotspur 2
Tottenham (Alli 61'), Davies (70')
Red card Jonjo Shelvey (Newcastle)
'Midnights'
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EArtist%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Taylor%20Swift%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ELabel%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Republic%20Records%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
