{"id":117990,"date":"2020-09-14T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2020\/09\/nvidia_is_purchasing_chip_designer_arm_and_that_could_be_very_good_news_for_nintendo"},"modified":"2020-09-14T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T08:30:00","slug":"nvidia-is-purchasing-chip-designer-arm-and-that-could-be-very-good-news-for-nintendo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/09\/14\/nvidia-is-purchasing-chip-designer-arm-and-that-could-be-very-good-news-for-nintendo\/","title":{"rendered":"Nvidia Is Purchasing Chip Designer Arm, And That Could Be Very Good News For Nintendo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Arm \u2013 the British semiconductor design firm behind the mobile tech found in millions of devices worldwide via companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Qualcomm \u2013 is being acquired by Nvidia from Japanese company SoftBank for a whopping $40 billion.<\/p>\n

Initially, at least, it seems that Nvidia is keen to keep things as they are, and Arm will continue to be based in the UK \u2013 Nvidia has even pledged funds to create an AI research centre at Arm’s HQ, which hints that the deal is more about the future of AI than it is leveraging Arm’s network of technology. Nvidia has also stated that it intends to create massive Arm-based data centres for cloud computing and other uses.<\/p>\n

However, in the long term, it’s not unreasonable to see the acquisition as Nvidia’s way of forcing its way into the CPU sector, an area in which it has traditionally struggled. The company’s primary area is creating GPUs, and outside of its Tegra “system on a chip” line \u2013 which is used in the Nintendo Switch \u2013 it is more concerned with AI and in-car tech.<\/p>\n

Early Tegra chips were intended for smartphones and MP3 players like the ill-fated Microsoft Zune, but Nvidia found it difficult to make headway in a smartphone sector dominated by Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon chipsets, and instead focused on putting its silicon into tablets and self-made devices, like the Nvidia Shield<\/a> line \u2013 the creation of which arguably helped catch Nintendo’s eye<\/a> when it came to the tech it wished to use inside the Switch.<\/p>\n