Jensen Huang, the new king of the hill in the semiconductor world, has just taken what looks like an uncharacteristic risk.
His company Nvidia’s agreement on Monday to pay up to $40bn for chip designer Arm Holdings has threatened to provoke a backlash from Arm customers who see the US-based firm as a rival.
“We’re not going to stand on anyone’s toes,” Mr Huang insists — although that may not be the way the rest of the chip industry sees it. Critics also say he has risked making his company a pawn in the tech war between the US and China, whose antitrust regulators two years ago failed to clear a $44bn acquisition being pursued by another US chip company, Qualcomm.