Nvidia says goodbye to Arm for good
Nvidia has sold its remaining stake in Arm Holdings, ending a relationship that once aimed to become the largest acquisition in semiconductor industry history. According to SEC filings, Nvidia sold 1.1 million Arm shares valued at approximately $140 million.
The sale took place during the fourth quarter of 2025, reducing Nvidia stake in Arm to exactly zero. It is a dramatic turn for a company that in 2020 offered $40 billion to acquire Arm outright.
The story behind the attempted acquisition
In September 2020, Nvidia announced its intention to buy Arm from SoftBank for $40 billion, which would have been the largest acquisition in chip industry history. Arm designs the processor architecture found in virtually every smartphone in the world, plus servers, automobiles, and IoT devices.
However, regulators in the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, and China raised serious concerns about the concentration of power that would result from Nvidia, the dominant GPU manufacturer, also controlling the most widely used processor architecture on the planet. In February 2022, both companies announced the termination of the deal.
From failed acquisition to complete exit
After the deal collapsed, Arm conducted its own IPO in September 2023, debuting on the Nasdaq with a valuation exceeding $50 billion. Nvidia maintained a minority stake but has gradually sold it down to zero with this latest transaction.
What this means for the industry
Despite selling all its shares, Nvidia maintains its 20-year license with Arm, which allows it to continue using Arm architecture in its products. This license is particularly important for Nvidia Grace chips, which combine Arm-based CPUs with GPUs for artificial intelligence data centers.
For Arm, Nvidia exit as a shareholder reinforces its position as an independent company, something its customers like Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung consider crucial. Arm neutrality is what allows competing companies to use the same architecture without concerns about favoritism.
Market context
The sale comes at a time when Arm shares have appreciated significantly since its IPO, driven by the artificial intelligence boom. Investors view Arm as a key beneficiary of the explosion in chip demand, as its designs are present in data centers that train and run AI models.
For Nvidia, the $140 million from the sale is an insignificant amount compared to its market capitalization of over $2 trillion. The decision likely reflects strategic and regulatory considerations rather than financial needs, closing a chapter that began with one of tech history most ambitious proposed deals.
