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

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.

Automotive

How the Ford Ranger is powering community resilience

Through machine and technology, Ford Philanthropy is helping Gawad Kalinga bridge the gap for remote communities.

Published

March 23, 2026

MJ Jucutan

Strong communities aren’t just built with bricks and mortar. They are sustained by the hands that reach out and the wheels that get them there.

For Gawad Kalinga (GK), reaching the most isolated provinces in the Philippines is often the biggest hurdle to delivering hope.

To bridge this gap, Ford Philanthropy and Ford Philippines recently handed over the keys to a brand-new Ford Ranger Sport 4×4.

During the launch of the “Ford Building Together” initiative at the GK Headquarters in Mandaluyong, the Ranger was introduced as a vital partner for GK’s nationwide relief operations.

The Ranger provides the performance and off-road capability needed when every second counts.

More than a mission

“Strong communities are built through strong partnerships,” said Mary Culler, President of Ford Philanthropy.

Alongside Pedro Simoes, Managing Director of Ford Philippines, Culler highlighted how this initiative unites dealers, employees, and owners.

It’s a collective effort to scale the heart of what Ford does: moving people forward.

Through Operation Walang Iwanan, Ford has already equipped disaster response hubs across six regions with essential tech: from Starlink mini-satellites and EcoFlow solar power to water filtration systems.

Between 2024 and 2025, these tools supported over 11,500 individuals through fires and natural disasters.

Investing in the everyday

The impact stretches into the daily moments of community life. Since 2015, Ford’s partnership with GK has reached 15,000 patients through medical missions. They also trained 1,100 health champions.

Through the Kusina ng Kalinga program, children receive the nutrition they need to stay focused in school. Meanwhile, the new READ program provides 12 weeks of literacy support for students in Caloocan.

Even food security is getting a tech-driven boost. Ford has renewed its collaboration with Scholars of Sustenance Philippines, using mobility to rescue surplus food. It is then redistributed to families experiencing hunger in Nueva Vizcaya.

In the end, technology lives inside these real moments. By combining grassroots action with reliable mobility, Ford and Gawad Kalinga are ensuring that no community is ever truly out of reach.

Enterprise

AMD poised to lead agentic AI era with high-performance CPUs

Published

March 21, 2026

GadgetMatch

AMD is prepared to lead the industry in its agentic AI era with their high-performance CPU strategy.

As the industry pivots from simple AI models to agentic AI systems that are capable of independent planning and decision-making, the CPU is reclaiming its role as the critical “head coach” of the data center.

This was noted by AMD CEO and Chair Dr. Lisa Su during the AMD Advancing AI event last year. The rise of autonomous agents has transformed inference into a complex and multi-step workflow that demands sophisticated logic and orchestration.

And while high-performance GPUs are necessary to generate insights in real time, the surrounding infrastructure is just as important.

This is where CPUs enter the picture. Their performance and efficiency are more important than ever in the overall performance of modern AI infrastructure.

And AMD delivers an advantage with their offerings. In recently published data, a 5th Gen AMD EPYC CPU-based system is estimated to perform up to 2.1x better per core against an NVIDIA Grace Superchip-based system.

The same system AMD-based system also delivers up to 2.26x uplift on SPECpower, measuring operations per watt.

The x86 CPU architecture gives customers the advantage of a broad, proven software ecosystem that can run existing workloads natively.

This avoids the costly refactoring and code-base duplication often required when switching to Arm-based alternatives.

Looking ahead, AMD is doubling down on the balanced system philosophy. Future architectures such as the “Venice” CPUs will power the “Helios” rack-scale AI design.

By integrating EPYC CPUs with Instinct GPUs and the ROCm software stack, AMD aims to maximize cluster-level performance and lower the total cost of ownership in the agentic era.