Qualcomm Accuses Arm Of Limiting Tech Access In Global Antitrust Assault
Qualcomm is reportedly urging multiple antitrust agencies around the globe to intervene in its dispute with Arm, with the former privately alleging in meetings and secret filings that the latter is engaging in unfair business practices. It's said Qualcomm has filed confidential complaints with the United States Federal Commission, European Commission, and Korea Fair Trade Commission.
The longstanding relationship between Qualcomm and Arm is a mutually beneficial one, and at the same time contentious. It's growing even more combative as both companies attempt to ride the AI chip boom to new heights. For example, Qualcomm recently won a court battle in Delaware, in the which the company convinced a jury that it didn't need a new license to employ Arm's IP after acquiring chip startup Nuvia for $1.4 billion.
Now just a few months later, Qualcomm is trying to convince multiple regulatory agencies that Arm is hurting competition by restricting access to its chip technologies, according to a Bloomberg report.
From Qualcomm's vantage point, Arm's open licensing model that has been in place for decades has been good for the industry, while also creating a reliance in its technology. To that point, there's a good chance that at least one of your in-home devices is running on an Arm-based design, be it the chip inside your smartphone, wireless router, tablet, or any number of smart devices.
According to the report, Qualcomm is accusing Arm of restricting access to key technologies that should be available under its current license agreements. While not specified in the report, this is likely in reference to Arm's AI-optimized compute subsystems (CSS) solutions.
Naturally, Arm disagrees with Qualcomm's assessment, going so far as to call its longtime customer's latest accusations nothing more than a "desperate attempt" to conceal the merits of Arm's business practices.
"Arm remains focused on enhancing innovation, promoting competition, and respecting contractual rights and obligations," Arm told Bloomberg in an email. "Any allegation of anticompetitive conduct is nothing more than a desperate attempt by Qualcomm to detract from the merits and expand the parties’ ongoing commercial dispute for its own competitive benefit."
The timing of Qualcomm's reported antitrust assault also comes on the heels of Qualcomm making an even bigger push into Windows-based PCs with its Snapdragon X platforms. This has mainly entailed laptop solutions, though the company has made clear that it intends on expanding into desktop solutions, too.
