Will Nvidia's acquisition of ARM be approved? The EU will give the answer on October 13

According to the latest report from Reuters, Nvidia sought EU approval for its acquisition of British chip developer ARM on Wednesday (8th). The European Commission has set October 13 as the initial deadline for ruling on the transaction. It is expected that the EU may express the same concerns as the British authorities, undermining Nvidia's plan to complete the transaction early next year.

However, although the European Commission has set an initial deadline, it may still extend the review time by at least four months due to criticism from competitors and chip customers.

A year ago, Nvidia, the world's largest GPU and artificial intelligence chip provider, announced its acquisition of ARM, which immediately sparked strong opposition from the semiconductor industry.

ARM has long been a neutral chip provider, licensing key intellectual property to a host of chip companies, including Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics and Apple, some of which are Nvidia's competitors.

Qualcomm has publicly stated that it does not support Nvidia's acquisition of ARM. Qualcomm and Google's parent company Alphabet have said that once the acquisition is approved, Nvidia will control ARM's basic chip technology license, which may affect ARM's "Switzerland in the semiconductor industry" business model, that is, maintaining a neutral partner with various companies.

Customers such as Broadcom and MediaTek are also worried that Nvidia's acquisition will disrupt competitors' reliance on ARM technologies for data centers and smartphones.

Nvidia has said it will maintain ARM as a neutral technology supplier, and said in a statement: "We are working through the regulatory process and we look forward to working with the European Commission to resolve any questions they may have. This transaction will be good for ARM, its licensees, competition and the industry."