Conversation

It’s official: Nvidia is acquiring Arm.

theverge.com

Nvidia is acquiring Arm for $40 billion

SoftBank bought Arm in 2016 for $31 billion

298

897

Azeria

@Fox0x01

Sep 14, 2020

This is a big step for both

@Arm

and

@nvidia

. I’m excited to see the innovations in robotics, self-driving cars, and AI research this acquisition will yield. Nvidia will establish an AI research center at Arm’s HQ, invest in Arm-powered AI supercomputer, and a Startup incubator.

111

Azeria

@Fox0x01

Sep 14, 2020

While many people view this acquisition as problematic, I believe it will bring Arm-powered research innovations to the next level. Especially with a driven and open minded company like Nvidia. Besides, it could be worse; Imagine Apple acquired Arm. ;)

190

Replying to

It definitely could be worse, but open-minded isn't exactly the term I would use for Nvidia considering their years of beef with the Linux kernel community and their refusal to create open-source drivers for their GPU till date.

Replying to

and

NVIDIA has done substantial work on the open source Linux kernel and Mesa support for Tegra. They've been much better than ARM when it comes to releasing open source mobile GPU support. It's hard to see how ARM could get any worse than it already is in that aspect anyway.

Replying to

and

Qualcomm has also done work on the open source driver for their mobile GPU. ARM themselves doesn't do this. Both Qualcomm and NVIDIA still have separate closed source mobile drivers, but they've worked to get open source support for each new generation among other improvements.

1:37 PM · Sep 14, 2020Twitter Web App

Replying to

and

NVIDIA could actually be a positive influence on ARM in this regard. I doubt they would license out a Tegra GPU to other vendors, but that would be an improvement. Somewhat curious about what's going to happen to Mali though. Would they really keep doing entirely separate GPUs?