The Silicon Valley campus of the chip maker Nvidia. The deal would have been the largest ever among chip companies.Credit…Christie Hemm Klok for The New York TimesSAN FRANCISCO — Nvidia, the Silicon Valley chip maker, has ended its nearly 18-month effort to buy Arm, which licenses chip technology used in most smartphones.Nvidia, a fast-growing company whose chips are best known for rendering images in video games, in September 2020 offered cash and stock then valued at $40 billion for Arm, making it the most expensive deal ever among chip companies. Nvidia made the offer to buy Arm from SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate that has owned the British company since 2016. Nvidia’s rising stock price later sent the transaction’s value much higher, settling at about $60 billion on Monday.But the blockbuster deal encountered setbacks that included a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit in December to block the acquisition, as well opposition from regulators in Britain.Nvidia and SoftBank said early Tuesday they agreed to terminate the planned deal because of “significant regulatory challenges.”The end of the deal is a blow to Nvidia and its chief executive, Jensen Huang, who has driven the company’s chips into new applications, …
