SoftBank nears deal to sell Arm Holdings to Nvidia for over $40 bn: WSJ

SoftBank Group Corp is close to selling British chip designer Arm Holdings to Nvidia Corp for more than $40 billion, a deal which would create a giant in the chip industry, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The cash-and-stock deal could be sealed early next week and would value Arm in the low $40 billions, the Journal report said, citing sources.

Nvidia is known for its graphics chips that power video games, but it has developed other markets including artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and data centers.

Arm supplies the chip technology for virtually all mobile devices such as phones and tablets but is also expanding into processors for cars, datacenter services and other devices.

The British company does not make chips. Instead it licenses out the underlying technology so others can make chips with it. It has previously collaborated with Nvidia.

Last year Nvidia said it would make its chips work with processors from Arm to build supercomputers deepening its push into systems that are used for modeling both climate change predictions and nuclear weapons.

SoftBank acquired Arm for $32 billion in 2016, its largest-ever purchase, in part to expand into the internet.

The terms would mark a big win for the Japanese company which has struggled to jump-start growth in the business, according to the WSJ.

Nvidia declined to comment. SoftBank and Arm did not respond to Reuters' requests for comments.