Hacker News Reader

Comment by bencollier49 | Hacker News Reader

They blatantly ought to have done this for the original sale. Better late than never, I suppose.

I understand objecting, but for security reasons?

A better argument would be that Nvidia gains serious power over companies who are currently ARM customer and Nvidia competitors.

Perhaps the UK want to be able to use ARM designs for domestic chips in the future, without being dependent on an American company, but yeah, then they should have objected when a Japanese company bought ARM as well.

I'm not familiar with the concrete law, but monopoly/market based rejections could probably be disputed and result in lengthy proceedings. Not so if you swing the national security hammer.

Also, as others have noted, it's quite possible that GHCQ has backdoors into ARM designs that would be jeopardized.

But despite being owned by Softbank, Arm Ltd. is still incorporated in the UK and has their headquarters there. If chip design is seen as a essential national capability, the national security argument is valid regardless, in my opinion.

Or perhaps doesn’t have backdoors, and would prefer it stays that way, which could be jeopardized by US owners - see the Intel Management Engine.

Not only that, but I'd be surprised if the military didn't make heavy use of Nvidia cards for ML workloads, CAD design or god knows what. I could definitely see a way to frame this as a security threat if either company were to stop selling to them.

> but for security reasons?

Seems to be the strongest/easiest route to go to justify blocking it. The whole national security angle and all.

> then they should have objected when a Japanese company bought ARM as well

I have to imagine this was a bit of sleeping at the wheel. I'm not sure though.

Perhaps more that times have changed. We used to have a strong commitment to the neoliberal ideal of a separation between state and business. The experience of nationalisation had also not been good (think Austen and BT). That’s changed and we are now in the world of “entrepreneurial states” for better or worse.

Yea it's a fascinating topic. I think as countries become weary of each other (E.U. <-> U.K., China <-> U.S., others...) they start to protect industries and such even if it goes in the face of stated ideals. I think we're seeing governments act on a more nation-state basis than in the recent past. Much more scrutiny and distrust.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

Coming from a 5G thread, this sounds sensible to me.

We've seen an enormous hollowing out of institutional competence since the rise of Free Trade At All Costs.

Hmm. Thinking of the UK in the 1970s, "institutional competence" is not the word that springs to mind. But, yeah, there are definitely reasons why the world has got more nationalist, and if everyone else is doing it, to some extent we have to follow suit. Of course, the UK is not a continent-sized economy like the US or China, and has to be a bit more free-trade-oriented than they are.

>Seems to be the strongest/easiest route to go to justify blocking it. The whole national security angle and all.

What makes you think so?

So Intel - US / TSMC - Taiwan can be considered as national security, but ARM not?

Could you elaborate? I guess my thinking is similar to if someone wanted to try and buy Intel. The U.S. would probably stop it on national security grounds.

I hope that makes sense - at least where I was trying to go with that comment. Maybe it's incorrect or not well thought out but I'd at least like to make my point clear :)

I thought you wanted to say that they wanted to block it, but had no solid reason, so picked "easiest" route and blocked it on national security grounds

That is what I wanted to say. Apologize for any confusion. I guess I didn't understand your comment. Were you trying to say that the U.S. and Taiwan could do it so why not the U.K.? If so, yea I agree with you.

Perhaps they’ve learned from a recent US administration that “National Security” is a very broad brush, which is hard to contradict, and thus is an easy card to play when you don’t want to reveal your actual motives! [1]

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53683569

Security objections are a WTO get out of jail free card for countries looking to engage in protectionism.

That's true, but I think what the UK government is trying to do here is to get guarantees from Nvidia regarding the future of ARM operations in the UK.

If Nvidia were to relocate the brainiest parts of ARM to the US then the UK would lose a skillset that is arguably relevant for national security.

So I don't think this intervention is a definitive no to the acquisition. Rather, it appears to be a way of entering into negotiations.

It's in line with recent behavior toward e.g. Huawei and 5G. What's interesting here is that Softbank is a Japanese company, but reading the government announcement you'd think it may as well be Chinese. It would be interesting to see the UK explain to Japan, somewhat of an ally, why its company is a national security threat.

But SoftBank is selling ARM to NVIDIA...

Yeah, good point. Can't trust those damn yankees.

It's probably something where the government wanted to stop this deal for a number of reasons, and "national security" was the easiest justification where they already had a legal apparatus in place for doing so.

> Yeah, good point. Can't trust those damn yankees.

Trump did a brilliant job :)

You jest, but the the world is well-aware of the risk - and possible consequences - of the top US office being compromised - or at least being held by someone who doesn't act in NATO's interests - and it's a sobering thought.

I'm not joking. Every traditional US partner suddenly realized during the Trump administration that their relation can end without warning. Now they're doing damage control.

They were too scared of looking 'closed for business' in the middle of the disaster that was/is Brexit.

It's the ditch that keeps on giving.

I think we are on transition slogan number 3, quite the compensation to being cut off from your customers for many businesses I'm sure.

Edit: Is the HN hive telling me Brexit is a good thing then?

You might be right here.

Brexit only fully happened a few months ago, so it is hardly related to this. Any considerations w.r.t. looking 'open for business' would certainly still apply. But sure, make everything about Brexit, why not.

Brexit took close to 5 years from vote to implementation, during which there was lots of noise from all sides. The Softbank deal came after the Brexit vote, once the Sterling had dropped sufficiently (~30%) to make it additionally enticing.

Among articles from the time, https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2016/07/18/arm-softb..., complete with government spin.

It's hard not to make something about Brexit, when the government explicitly chose to make the thing about Brexit. The Softbank deal was disastrous for UK tech, and if the government really was interested in national security grounds (which is what they're claiming this time around), it would have intervened in that deal. NVIDIA isn't likely much more of a risk from a national security perspective than SoftBank. But it had to sell Brexit, and a massive foreign investment in a UK company was an opportunity for spin too enticing to give up.

The full legal consequences of brexit have still not fully come into force yet (there are various grace periods still to elapse: the most recent was the start of this month and there is still another extended to 1st October). And the secondary effects will likely take years to become apparent.

That's true, consequences of actions are only ever felt within a very limited timeframe.

The only thing it currently means is that the CMA will investigate and prepare a report.

On the face of it the difference with Softbank is that Nvidia is a big semiconductors player and thus that this acquisition can have a material impact on competition in the industry and the UK, which was not the case with Softbank.

In addition, since the UK is now "properly independent" the government is probably keen to show it by doing what the US and EU competition regulators do.

How are there security reasons when their foreign licencees already get complete and modifiable designs? It's only an IP protection at that point enforceable through friendly relations, not anything immune to adversaries. I can see all the anti-competitive concerns though.

I'm not sure late is better than never in this case.

The horse has literally bolted. Shutting the door now does literally nothing other than show you cocked up by not locking it in the first place.

But what are the consequences exactly? The deal will be stopped and ARM still belongs to a foreign company. Why not follow this to its logical conclusion and nationalize ARM if it is so important?

You can't prevent someone to sell something if it doesn't want to keep it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com