Nvidia founder promises to sign 'legally binding' protections for Arm
The chief executive of US graphics chip maker Nvidia has made assurances that he will sign legally binding pledges to protect jobs at Arm in the UK.
The promises come after Nvidia announced its $40bn (£30bn) takeover of Arm, the Cambridge company that designs microprocessor chips used in billions of smartphones.
Jensen Huang, the founder of the US tech titan, said in an interview: “We will of course enter legally binding documents with everyone.”
He told the Financial Times that Arm’s headquarters will remain in Britain “for as long as Arm employees want to work in the UK”. He added that Nvidia would boost headcount in Arm’s Cambridge headquarters, but stopped short of committing to the number of jobs that would be added.
An Nvidia spokesman said: “NVIDIA guarantees to keep Arm’s headquarters in Cambridge. We are going to sustain and grow R&D spending and headcount in the UK. And we guarantee Arm’s IP will stay registered in the UK. We look forward to discussing our plans with the UK government, and we are very happy to put legally binding agreements behind all our commitments.”
Nvidia is buying Arm from SoftBank, the Japanese investor that snapped up the UK bluechip in 2016.
In 2016, SoftBank agreed to legally binding hiring pledges with the Takeover Panel to double Arm’s headcount and keep its headquarters in the UK until 2021. Arm has since grown its headcount to more than 6,000, with 2,500 in the UK.
But The Telegraph reported earlier this week that 500 jobs were effectively left out of Nvidia’s takeover. An Arm spokesperson said its internet of things division was being reorganised and would be moved out of the group before the takeover closed.
Nvidia has promised to build a new artificial intelligence lab in Cambridge and even construct a supercomputer for researchers.
However, MPs and Hermann Hauser, one of Arm’s co-founders, have pushed for legally binding commitments. Mr Hauser said he feared the deal would be “an absolute disaster”. Sceptics of the deal believe Nvidia, which makes graphics chips but lacks a presence in mobile phones, would use Arm to build a monopoly. They also argue the takeover would cause Arm customers, chip companies and smartphone makers, to look elsewhere, rather than do business with their rival, Nvidia.
Earlier this week, when pressed on making binding pledges, Mr Huang said it was too early and the deal had only just been signed. He said: “We just started the conversation. No documentation of or framework has been captured.The answer is we will do what is right.”
