If it can head off those worries, however, buying Arm could set the stage for Nvidia’s next big act.
Haas concedes that other than Qualcomm — the mobile chip company whose aggressive business tactics have often antagonized others that rely on its technology — no other major chip group has ever succeeded at both. A bigger problem arises from clashing incentives. Nvidia’s business revolves around selling chips for use in high-value devices such as gaming PCs or data centre servers. That gives it good reason to make use of Arm’s latest technology first, to get an edge over rivals that depend on access to the same technology.
Several industry experts argue, however, that Risc-V will now attract a wave of investment from companies seeking an alternative to Nvidia. The largest Arm customers will eventually switch to designing their own chip architectures to ensure control of their technology, Lippett predicted.Article content continued
Nvidia’s second goal with the deal is to expand its technology to an ever wider range of devices. This will be driven by the growing need for AI “inferencing,” or applying pre-trained AI models to data gathered on the fly, as many day-to-day objects develop a basic level of intelligence.
Good time to invest in RISC-V architecture if they break the licensing agreement.