The microprocessor industry’s unfolding saga got a big plot twist a couple of weeks ago when Nvidia paid $40 billion to buy Arm, the world’s leading processor architecture.
That deal turned some heads, as it meant a proprietary parent company was taking over a business that openly licensed its architecture to all comers. Nvidia and Arm promised the ARM architecture would continue to be available for licensing, but you could see other players looking for a backup plan.