Arm under investigation, accused of trying to monopolize the semiconductor market

Arm Holdings Plc is at the center of a complex antitrust investigation conducted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States.

The federal competition and consumer protection authority is closely examining the licensing practices for technologies related to microchip production, suspecting that the British company is attempting to gain illicit control over specific segments of the industry.

According to confidential sources, Washington officials want to determine whether Arm intends to deny or degrade the quality of licenses related to central processing unit (CPU) designs, precisely at a time when it is intensifying efforts to develop its own processors independently.

Earlier this year, the agency notified Arm of the start of the checks, requiring the strict preservation of all relevant corporate documents.

Is the FTC Investigating Arm? Are Chip Licenses at Risk?

Historically, the company, majority-controlled by SoftBank Group Corp., has never been involved in the actual manufacture of semiconductors.

Its solid business model is based, in fact, on the sale of advanced designs and on the licensing of instruction sets, i.e., the foundational languages that let software communicate effectively with hardware.

Large multinationals like Qualcomm and tech giants like Apple rely on these architectures to produce their flagship chips.

The news of the ongoing investigations has generated a slight backlash on Wall Street, with shares closing down by less than 1 percent, at $207.96. Until then, the stock had had an exceptional year, nearly doubling its value and easily outperforming the overall performance of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index.

Qualcomm’s Offensive and the Global Landscape

Regulators’ attention has crossed into international borders. European and South Korean competition authorities are also closely examining the British group’s business conduct, largely prompted by the repeated reports of Qualcomm.

The latter formally filed a complaint with the European Commission in 2024, accusing Arm of attempting to improperly restrict access to technology licenses. Tensions had already led, last year, Seoul’s antitrust authority to carry out surprise inspections at Arm’s Korean offices.

The British management, however, rejected the accusations outright, issuing a statement in which it dismissed Qualcomm’s claims as entirely unfounded and describing them as an improper attempt to gain a negotiating advantage in the ongoing commercial dispute between the two brands.

This confrontation represents the latest chapter in a rivalry with deep roots: in the past Qualcomm fiercely opposed the failed acquisition of Arm by NVIDIA in 2022 and, the year before, had sparked a complex legal battle for breach of contract following the acquisition of the startup Nuvia.

A New Strategy for Data Centers

The investigations come at a time of major changes for the company. Under the leadership of CEO Rene Haas, Arm has begun shifting its center of gravity away from its mobile-device origins in search of wider profit margins in the thriving data center market.

In March, plans for the direct design of proprietary processors emerged, an ambitious initiative that could generate $15 billion in annual revenue within five years.

On one hand, Qualcomm fears that this expansion could betray the open-licensing model that has driven the industry’s growth; on the other, numerous heavyweight players such as Alphabet, Amazon and AMD have expressed their support.

In particular, AMD’s server executives have warmly welcomed the arrival of the new competitor, underscoring how a competitive market forces all companies to keep innovation at very high speeds.