Nvidia says Arm 'one of a kind asset,' interested in Intel foundry
Nvidia's (NASDAQ:NVDA) Chief Executive Jensen Huang said that the company would have loved to own chip intellectual property company Arm Holdings, but it is not needed for Nvidia to succeed.
"Arm is a one of a kind asset, it's a one of a kind company," Huang said at a press event on Wednesday, adding that these types of companies don't come along all that often. "You want to own great assets, great platforms."
Nvidia (NVDA) pulled the plug on buying Arm from Softbank (OTCPK:SFTBF) in February after it spent the majority of 2021 trying to close the deal. It faced stiff scrutiny in the U.S., Arm's home country of the U.K. and around the world, over antitrust concerns.
Softbank is currently planning an initial public offering for Arm in the U.S.
Huang, ever an optimist, spun the fallout by saying that although the deal did not close, it helped Nvidia (NVDA) build "wonderful relationships" with Arm's management. Huang also said that it caused Arm to get "more aggressive" for high-performance computing with its roadmap and the "net result is inspired leadership for high performance computing and the future of Nvidia."
On Tuesday, Nvidia (NVDA) unveiled a number of new products, including the Hopper H100 GPU with 80 billion transistors, based off the company's new Hopper architecture.
Huang also said that Nvidia (NVDA) would be interested in using Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) as a foundry, building on its existing relationship with the company.
He added that any potential use of Intel (INTC) as a foundry is not likely to happen soon, however.
Nvidia (NVDA) shares slipped slightly less than 0.5% to $264.06 on Wednesday, while Intel (INTC) gained slightly less than 1.5% to $49.05.
Intel (INTC) is in the process of transitioning its business under Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger from focusing on just CPUs to other avenues, including foundries, GPUs and crypto chips.
Last month, Bank of America said Nvidia (NVDA), along with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), were likely to keep benefiting, as the graphics chip market is "still early in [the] upgrade cycle" and the second-half of the year should see stronger growth, as supply and mix improve.