Enterprise

Why the NVIDIA-Arm deal is unlikely to get approval from China

Geopolitics taking over the technology world

Published

October 2, 2020

Shivam Vahia

British chip designer Arm is a very unique company in today’s world. Monopolies are despised and regulators are always on the lookout for antitrust practices. Despite this, Arm’s chip design is used in pretty much every modern gadget, giving it an unprecedented level of technology control.

Whether it’s your Android or iOS smartphone, tablet, work machine, or a tiny smartwatch, all of them leverage Arm’s chip design. With the IoT boom, more and more devices are leveraging these technology stacks. We can compare Arm to a golden goose, it’ll keep giving healthy rewards as long as it’s neutral and follows standardized licensing.

The existing model has given Arm more than 90% market share and a considerable edge against rivals like Intel and AMD. However, experts are concerned the recent acquisition of Arm by Nvidia could spark regulatory trouble. Nvidia announced it’ll be buying Arm for US$ 40 billion from Japanese giant SoftBank.

The proposed transaction will need regulatory approval from the US, the UK, the EU, and China.

Understanding how Arm operates

Arm’s success is based on its neutral nature — it doesn’t manufacture chipsets and keeps a low-key profile in terms of marketing. Instead, it silently licenses its IP (intellectual property) to companies for direct use. These customers are then free to modify, manufacture, and market these chips easily.

To be more precise, manufacturers license ARM’s architecture or instruction sets. They determine how processors handle commands. This option gives chip-makers greater freedom to customize their own designs. In the end, Samsung’s Exynos, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, Huawei’s Kirin, and Apple’s A-series rely on Arm for chip designs.

Arm’s direct rival in the chip designing space is Intel, who utilizes a different architecture called the x86. However, Arm’s designs are known for their power efficiency and have proven to be superior. No other company has been able to make a significant impact against Arm’s might. According to Arm, more than 180 billion chips with its processor cores and other components have been shipped around the world.

Arm is purely a technology company that gets along well with everyone. Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser describes the company as “the Switzerland of the semiconductor industry” because of its approach. The technology is universally available and anyone can get a piece of it. And, with a spotless track record of three decades, the company is considered stable despite international political unrest.

The company was sold to SoftBank in 2016 and there were concerns in China about a Japanese giant owning a key technology asset. China and Japan have a strained relationship, but the deal emphasized that SoftBank won’t hinder Arm’s business strategy and key decisions. And hence, the transaction went through.

US vs China trade war

The world has changed radically in the last four years. The US and China were embroiled in an extended trade war, the Coronavirus pandemic has soured international relations, and the US now wants to ban TikTok and WeChat. Huawei has lost access to key channels like Google Mobile Services, disrupting its mobile division. The telecom giant’s 5G ambitions are on hold due to increased security scrutiny in many countries like Australia, Germany, and India.

Right now, Chinese investors hold a majority stake in it’s China operations, and this division makes up 20 percent of Arm’s annual revenues. Hence, a nod from the Chinese regulator plays a critical role in the deal to go through.

An opinion piece in state-backed Global Times said, “If Arm falls into U.S. hands, Chinese technology companies would certainly be placed at a big disadvantage in the market.” Chinese regulators haven’t spoken publicly about the deal, but state-run media is often viewed as a barometer of sentiment among senior officials.

If Arm comes under Nvidia’s control, the US government will also have more power against China in the technology race. Chinese companies Huawei, ByteDance, ZTE, and WeChat have faced severe sanctions, crippling their business. A lot of Chinese companies rely on Arm’s technology and Huawei’s Kirin lineup is drastically affected due to the ongoing trade sanctions.

Geopolitical climate playing a role in the deal

In 2018, China rejected Qualcomm’s offer to takeover American-Dutch semiconductor maker NXP. The deal was worth US$ 44 billion. The NVIDIA-Arm deal will take almost 18 months to complete, during which the ongoing geopolitical crisis could play a pivotal role.

NVIDIA and Arm have offered reassurances that the British firm will remain neutral. As part of NVIDIA, Arm will continue “maintaining the global customer neutrality that has been foundational to its success,” the companies said in a statement.

The boilerplate release doesn’t look very reassuring though. On September 26, the US imposed restrictions on exports to China’s biggest chip maker SMIC. It said the company may pose an unacceptable risk of diversion to military end-use.” SMIC has denied any ties to China’s military.

Following the restriction, Global Times published another article stating, “It now appears that China will need to control all research and production chains of the semiconductor industry, and rid itself of being dependent on the US.”

The indications are clear, China is increasingly concerned about technological independence. The internet grew on the back of globalization, but in the last few years, calls for localization have grown louder. The NVIDIA-Arm deal will be a testing point for international trade and diplomacy.

Related Topics:Antitrust ARM ARM Architecture ARM Chipset Arm Nvidia China NVIDIA Regulator

Enterprise

AGIBOT is turning robots into companions for our everyday routines

The era of robots performing cool tricks is over!

Published

April 17, 2026

GadgetMatch

The era of robots performing “cool tricks” is over.

At its 2026 Partner Conference, AGIBOT moved embodied AI out of the lab and into the real world.

y using a “One Robotic Body, Three Intelligences” architecture, the company launched five new robot platforms and eight AI models to make physical AI a normal part of how we live and work.

Engineering for human environments

AGIBOT believes that for a robot to be a good partner, it first needs a body you can actually rely on.

Take the AGIBOT A3, for example. This 173 cm tall humanoid weighs 55 kg, about the same as a teenager. It uses a magnesium and titanium build to stay strong yet light.

It moves smoothly for 10 hours straight, and if the battery runs low, you can swap it out in just 10 seconds to keep the momentum of your day going.

In the workplace, the AGIBOT G2 Air acts as a single-arm helper that works right alongside people. It navigates narrow doorways and tight office spaces with ease.

This robot actually learns while it works; it records its environment and actions in real-time to help its AI get smarter every single day.

Then there is the D2 Max, the world’s first Level 3 autonomous four-legged robot. It isn’t a toy you control with a remote; it is a partner that explores tough terrain and handles security patrols entirely on its own.

Finally, the OmniHand 3 series brings a human-like touch to these machines. The flagship Ultra-T model mimics almost any hand movement, while the OmniPicker 3 and OmniHand 3 Lite handle the heavy-duty, high-impact jobs that require extra muscle.

8 models driving autonomy

The “brain” of these machines is a closed-loop system that helps them move, think, and talk.

To master movement, the Behavioral Foundation Model (BFM) allows a robot to copy human actions just by watching a short video.

Another model, the GCFM, lets the robot react to your voice or actions in real-time, which makes its movements feel natural instead of stiff.

To tackle complex tasks, AGIBOT uses a massive dataset called AGIBOT WORLD 2026, a library of real-life situations from homes and factories.

This library helps robots plan out long lists of chores without getting confused. They even use a “digital twin” system called Genie Sim 3.0, where robots practice new skills in a virtual world before trying them in the real one.

On top of that, the WITA Omni model helps the robot understand your feelings, allowing it to talk and move like it’s having a true conversation

Scalable deployment

The robots are becoming a part of our daily lives. By using the MEgo system to collect data easily, AGIBOT is making it simpler for these machines to learn how to help us in shops, warehouses, and our own homes.

As these robots start showing up in our lives, the technology feels less like a complicated machine and more like a companion that helps us grow.

Enterprise

Allbirds suddenly turns into an AI company

Published

April 16, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

Allbirds is an odd shoe company. Though it already enjoyed a cult following in some circles around the world, the brand suddenly expanded its reach everywhere, offering a lighter and more environment-friendly alternative to the usual suspects of the shoe world. Now, getting even odder, Allbirds is ditching the shoes and going barefoot into the world of AI.

It’s one of the oddest transitions in the corporate world. In an official statement, Allbirds has confirmed that it will pivot fully into a “fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider.” From Allbirds, it will be known as NewBird AI.

It’s not an incredibly abrupt change, though. The shoe brand and its stores won’t disappear overnight. The company will still hold a shareholder vote on May 18. If approved, they will transition into the new brand gradually.

The transition to AI, itself a gremlin of a keyword in today’s financial world, has resulted in the company’s stock value rising up. However, its long-term viability is in question, especially for a company with no experience in a world already drowning in AI.

From last year to today, AI has been the darling child of investors and a plague to consumers. While the former salivates over the short-term gain of AI adoption, the latter ruminates on the technology’s projected effects on the world.

Computers

Lenovo accelerates production-ready enterprise AI with NVIDIA

From AI inferencing to gigawatt-scale AI factories

Published

March 24, 2026

GadgetMatch

Lenovo has unveiled new Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage with NVIDIA solutions designed to accelerate AI adoption, reduce time-to-first-token (TTFT), and deliver measurable business results across personal, enterprise, and cloud environments.

Building on the inferencing acceleration introduced at Lenovo Tech World, this next phase of Hybrid AI execution expands the solutions with device to data center to gigawatt-scale AI cloud deployments.

This enables real-time decision-making, operational efficiency, and intelligent automation across industries at global scale. The solutions boost productivity, agility, and innovation by enabling faster AI deployment.

The development comes as AI is seen moving from training models powering real-time decisions. Lenovo is prepared to address the demand for validated hybrid AI platforms built for production-scale inferencing, as organizations will need infrastructure to support such.

In fact, Lenovo’s Hybrid AI Advantage with NVIDIA are now delivering ROI in less than six months. The new inferencing-optimized ThinkSystem and ThinkEdge servers are being utilized for real-time inferencing across retail, manufacturing, healthcare, sports, and smart city scenarios.

The expanded portfolio includes:

two Lenovo Hybrid AI platforms, featuring NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition and Blackwell Ultra
Hybrid AI inferencing starter platform with RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition
Lenovo ThinkAgile HX650a with Nutanix Enterprise AI and Nutanix Kubernetes Platform
Lenovo Hybrid AI platforms with Cloudian

Bringing inferencing directly to professionals

Lenovo and NVIDIA are bringing AI from development environments to real-world production at a global scale. This is thanks to new Lenovo AI inferencing platforms with NVIDIA Dynamo and NVIDIA NIM.

Meanwhile, Lenovo AI Cloud gigafactory platforms are powered by NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72. Industry-specific agentic AI solutions are also built with NVIDIA Blueprints and software.

For consumers, there’s next-generation NVIDIA RTX Pro Blackwell-powered mobile and desktop workstations. These will be rolled out across the ThinkPad P14s Gen 7, ThinkPad P16s Gen 5, and ThinkPad P1 Gen 1 lineups.

ThinkStation P5 Gen 2 desktops, meanwhile, will get up to two RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q GPUs. They will also have support for NVIDIA OpenShell.

For gigawatt-scale scenarios, the next-gen Vera Rubin platform accelerates deployment for hyperscale and sovereign AI cloud providers.

These fully liquid-cooled, rack-scale AI systems are engineered for faster deployment and dramatically improved token economics. They can achieve up to 10x higher throughput and up to 10x lower cost per token.