Qualcomm may purchase stake in Arm as part of consortium

What you need to know

• Qualcomm may join a group of other tech giants as part of a consortium that purchases Arm.
• The group would need to have multiple companies to ensure that Arm could remain effectively independent, according to Qualcomm's CEO.
• NVIDIA planned to purchase Arm for $66 billion, but the deal fell through.

Qualcomm and other tech giants may form a consortium to purchase Arm, according to a report by the Financial Times. The move would be part of an effort to keep Arm effectively independent. The idea being that if several large companies gathered together, Arm would continue to be neutral across the industry.

Arm-designed chips are used throughout the industry by Apple, Google, Qualcomm, and several other large companies.

NVIDIA planned to purchase Arm from SoftBank for $66 billion, but the deal fell through after legal action by the FTC in the United States. Intel and several companies in the industry were against NVIDIA's plan to purchase Arm. The purchase also ran into several legal challenges, which ultimately led to its end.

Since then, SoftBank, which owns Arm, announced plans to publicly list the company. Qualcomm appears to be interested in other plans.

“We’re an interested party in investing,” said Qualcomm chief executive Cristiano Amon to the Financial Times. “It’s a very important asset and it’s an asset which is going to be essential to the development of our industry.”

The CEO explained that Arm could work together with multiple chipmakers to purchase Arm. Amon said that multiple companies would need to join together in a purchase of Qualcomm in order to maintain neutrality. "You’d need to have many companies participating so they have a net effect that Arm is independent."

While Amon showed an interest in having Qualcomm invest in Arm, the CEO said that Qualcomm has not yet spoken to SoftBank about a potential deal.