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Comment by wAYshzRtw | Hacker News Reader

> Under the powers set out in the Enterprise Act 2002, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is able to intervene on national security grounds.

> The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will prepare a report on the competition and national security aspects of the proposed transaction.

So it's being framed as a national security threat, interesting.

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This is actually a fairly common way to justify protectionist and interventionist policy. It's "think of the children" in a new disguise, really.

But such is policy making. You have to justify your policy with what is popular, not with the truth. For example: lax covid restrictions justified because we can't be sure it'll work, vs. because we know that it'll hurt the economy.

Makes sense. I think it's going to be a lot more difficult for Nvidia to argue against this, rather than if the intervention had been about competition or something.

And in the case of issues that could touch on foreign trade or investment treaties, you may have to justify your policy using certain exceptions such as "national security".

I agree with your view on political rhetoric, however, that doesn't mean these things aren't issues of national security.

Having access to the fastest chips is a matter of national security, at least for the US. The AI race (even if it's just faster NN processing) has massive implications for modern warfare and national security.

I wonder if it will get squeezed into this:

https://www.cpni.gov.uk/critical-national-infrastructure-0

"In the UK, there are 13 national infrastructure sectors: Chemicals, Civil Nuclear, Communications, Defence, Emergency Services, Energy, Finance, Food, Government, Health, Space, Transport and Water. Several sectors have defined ‘sub-sectors’; Emergency Services for example can be split into Police, Ambulance, Fire Services and Coast Guard.

...the loss or compromise of which could result in:

a) Major detrimental impact on the availability, integrity or delivery of essential services – including those services whose integrity, if compromised, could result in significant loss of life or casualties – taking into account significant economic or social impacts; and/or

b) Significant impact on national security, national defence, or the functioning of the state.’ """

It'll be interesting to see how they can justify Nvidia's ownership of ARM a security threat, whilst ARM being owned by a Japanese investment bank being _just fine_. What's the difference?

Its obvious, firstly the bank is not going to mess with chips designs and block off customers the way Nvidua might becauae to it, they are conpetitirs.

Secondly, Nvidia will probably restructure / absorb ARM. At the moment its corporate structure is mostly intact

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