TLDR ver: Nvidia wants to be the life of the industry party (ARM allows them this) and bonus is they suspect ARM will topple x86 architecture before quantum PC’s are a thing. China and Europe, they are only in it for self preservation, they don’t care who is sus among us, as long as they live through it. Qualcomm says no because they are angry Nvidia beat them to the punch. Apple is quiet because they are the lead, and stuck between supporting ARM but also realizing Nvidia will allow other ARM a leg up on the competition. Intel is quiet, because speaking out will attach the stigma of stifling competition, even though they have several stamps on their frequent buyers card with this. ARM will make it and still be a industry leader because a good idea survives despite many attempts to kill it.

Nvidia wants this because they’ve hedged a bet that x86 is reaching architectural and design limits and ARM is the way to go. Just on a “green basis” ARM is a win (and literally hundreds of companies have made it past the 1 yr operating mark just on going ‘green’). Given that Apple face punched Intel (a what, 40 year veteran with tons of accolades and leadership in its aforementioned industry) and smote AMD (because its x86) pretty good with their offering.

They suspect ARM will become the lead until that “quantum” computing thing becomes a commercial reality. And with many using ARM, Nvidia has intel (not the company) and info on what everyone is doing, which gives its Nvidia (not Nvidia ARM but the classic Nvidia) something that’s better than nothing (maybe more).

And not everything is roses for Nvidia, they had that issue where their GPU drivers went bonkers and gamers had to revert to earlier ones (3-6 mo prior even a year before) to work before Nvidia figure something out. But they are committed to making it work for everyone . . . so they say.

Qualcomm says no because they are angry Nvidia beat them to the punch, and also angry due to losing their own super awesome power bid to (China nonetheless) a few years ago, so if Nvidea somehow eeks past the China blockade, they’ll be hopping pissed. They are also malding due to Apple ditching Snapdragon (got a bit o insider 411 here) and then suddenly turning out a ARM chip that kicks theirs to curb in very short amount of time development wise.

Intel doesn’t want this for sure, but they are being quiet about it. It’s hard, the benchmarks don’t lie and the prior atrocities of bribing and free market holding (YEs CCP has taken a page from INtel’s playbook). Plus they’ve had tons of bad news about losing that innovation thing and the NM thing. If they cry foul, everyone in the room including those not in the room will think Intel is afraid ARM will get the ‘shot in the arm’ to get to the next level and deliver a crushing kamehamehameha blow.

Apple is torn, so they’ve decided to go with Intel and be quiet. They knew they could have put in their bid but the cries of “free market competition” from Intel. And another hurdle is Apple loves to keep things TOP SECRET and they don’t give that clearance to anyone but their own. ARM however is CONFIDENTIAL and gives clearance to everyone (for a nominal fee, of course, you know, just to keep the lights running. “A Director’s job is to keep the lights on . . .” ). Decisions to make . . .

A giant and industry leader they’ve proven ARM can kick it and dethrone the biggest rap stars in this rap battle. Yet they realize, if they say yay or nay, they know they can turn the tide for or against instantly. On one side, they realize Nvidia’s entrance will grant other ARMites enough to become serious contenders themselves, and secretly laughing / and a part of them wishes they had the courage to voice what QCOM did. The other side is their arch enemy Intel, will either sink by sticking to x86, or even jump on board (uber rare, but they’d have to start from scratch), and help Apple, by taking away one boss opponent but replacing it with many mid level to standard grunt enemies . . . and Apple speaking out loud will attach the stigma that MAC is doing it to kick down Intel’s door, sans masterkey shotgun and battering ram and not best for “competition”. So speaking out only hurts apple and either side winning will have its own problem for Apple to deal with.

And Apple is savoring their processor victory, and realizes that’s enough. Let someone else duke it out, while they make the next better and work so the iphone next does well.

China and Europe, are in for the selfish game. China wants to take over the world (it’s Communism philosophy nearly ran into blows with the Soviet Union’s philosophy, as the Soviets were more into just keeping up with the Joneses realizing they could never take them over, but Mao wanted TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION but China wasn’t even close, and Soviets knew that wasn’t a possibility, but a lot as changed since that family argument. Now with China mixing capitalistic economy with Maoism communism, its a win win for them). But they know they can’t with those pesky Europeans and the ever threatening Americans. They know Europe is in the bag (and defeat-able in combat) but America with its unpredictability and uncanny (x-men) ability to invent something to lead the world on, China has to bring its A game. And part of that A game is limiting America’s space to maneuver and opportunities for it to concentrate (China’s playbooks is Sun Tzu’s art of war and given their progress looks well for them, but human right-ily, river-ily, air quality, environmentally, Catholic Church-ily, Tawain-ily, Hong Kong -ly, bitcoin-ily, Somali Pirate-ability, American Right WIng Republic-ily might not think so)

Qualcomm knows this all too well, having their game changer big deal squashed by Winnie the Pooh and friends. Europe wants European companies to benefit from ARM, since it was originally a UK thing (chafing, as UK technically is a part of Europe but Europeans tend to think Europe *cough* France Germany Italy Spain sometimes Norway + Sweden + Iceland Poland *cough* , but better than those cowboys across the atlantic, and Brexit doesn’t help). However Europe likes the concept of cowboys as entertainment and lulz, but doesn’t like them being permanent and taking over, and fear Nvidia may lock out Europeans or charge from the what used to be free from the UK.

What is my opinion? I say go for it. After all if that Japanese bank is willing to sell ARM to pad their balance sheet, not realizing if they cultivate this fig tree instead of uprooting it, in a few (more like several) years, it will bear more figs than they can handle and Nvidia is taking the RISC . . . If Nvidia screws this up, by introducing license hell and under the table bribery and anti competitive practices they’ll be where Intel is last year (behind technologically but rich). Yet even then ARM will be a top contender.

ARM is an innovation. It’s like x86 in the early 80’s. No matter what company goes by, it will be always there. And if ARM is broken up and its parts sold off to the highest bidders (which the Japanese bank is considering if Nvidia experiences too much FallOut76 and the deal goes nuclear), despite the whole being a greater than the sum of its parts, ARM will survive (might not be happy, like that starfish smashed by undersea mining equipment and has to grow back from that arm sliver left behind). And Apple and Qualcomm will be more than happy to innovate their version of ARM while keeping it a secret to everybody. Until that Quantum Leap takes off.

There is no problem till Nvidia has competitive problems. Then ARM becomes a weapon, to train against competitors.

China weaponizes their market size and their authoritarian model. There is no fair trade with China. It’s been 20 years since China entered the WTO with promises they’ve never fufilled. They block access of whomever they want to their markets. They don’t have an independent court system so every court decision is a political decision. They engage in predatory practices to siphon off ip and expertise through both forced transfers and espionage. If a company resists their forced transfers they will weaponize their courts against it, cf. Micron. What is the purpose of ARM needing to enter into a 49% JV with the Chinese government to operate in China, as just one small example?

Trump fought back. The West will regret not disengaging with China as much as possible until China makes actual changes. Because China as it operates now is working as hard as it can to undermine the West. Who can blame them as long as the West lets them get away with it? But don’t try to imply it’s somehow aggressive or immoral for Trump or anyone else to use America’s strengths as a way to defende themselves from China’s obvious aggression. Yes, reform should be made slowly, especially with financial systems. But no reform has been undertaken. 20 years is way too long and very little has been done. In fact, China has moved the opposite way and instead of taking the time to fulfill their promises they’ve taken advantage of the time given to them to try to institutionalize predatory advantages.

The current silicon wafer and chip problems are a gift to China, because it provides them with breathing space and a shot in the arm for their own chip manufacturing industry.

The world realizes that the problem is American democracy and the American voter. Another Trump will happen and the world needs to be prepared and insulated from a similar disaster.

Or it gives the US control of yet another globally-employed technology to weaponize?

Within 3 years, China will be offering an alternative platform that they will never weaponize.

Good analysis.

You could write for The Next Platform, with jokes like that. Good one! All good jokes have a microkernel of truth.

All that’s left now is for RTOSes to make a comeback – they got killed off because it was believed Linux on future hardware was the holy grail that will make it so fast it won’t matter it’s not predictable. And of course it’s much cheaper to train devs for.