Companies are wary of Nvidia-Arm deal

Some of the world’s largest technology companies are complaining to U.S. antitrust regulators

about Nvidia Corp.’s acquisition of Arm Ltd. because the deal will harm competition in an area of the industry that is vital to their businesses.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. are among companies worried about the $40 billion deal and are asking antitrust officials to intervene, said people familiar with the process who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. At least one of the companies wants the deal killed.

The acquisition would give Nvidia control over a critical supplier that licenses essential chip technology to the likes of Apple Inc., Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., Amazon.com Inc. and China’s Huawei Technologies Co.

U.K.-based Arm is known as the Switzerland of the industry because it licenses chip designs and related software code to all comers, rather than competing against semiconductor companies. The concern is that if Nvidia owns Arm, it could limit rivals’ access to the technology or raise the cost of access.

Nvidia has argued that the purchase price alone means it has no incentive to mess with that neutrality, but some rivals and customers are unconvinced.