London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2025

Nvidia and Huawei face an uncertain future in Britain's high-tech capital

Nvidia and Huawei face an uncertain future in Britain's high-tech capital

Situated in the middle of China and the U.S., the English university city of Cambridge has found itself at the center of two massive tech sagas.

U.S. chip maker Nvidia and Chinese hardware manufacturer Huawei have big expansion plans in Cambridge but both companies have big hurdles to overcome if their dreams are to be realized.

Nvidia hopes to acquire Cambridge-headquartered Arm for $40 billion and set up a new “world-class” AI center in the city, while Huawei plans to build a £1 billion ($1.3 billion) research lab in Sawston, located roughly eight miles from Cambridge city center.

Renowned for being one of the world’s greatest intellectual powerhouses, Cambridge is home to thousands of tech workers and companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple all employ highly-educated research teams in the city. “Lots of tech companies want to get foothold in Cambridge for the talent,” said William Tunstall-Pedoe, a Cambridge-based entrepreneur who sold his AI start-up to Amazon.

Nvidia’s bid for Arm


Arm, which is headquartered in Cambridge and currently owned by SoftBank, is widely regarded as the jewel in the crown of the British tech industry. Its chips power most of the world’s smartphones, as well as many other devices.

Arm Chief Executive Simon Segars told the Financial Times on Tuesday that the sale of Arm to Nvidia is likely to be held up by regulators. Chipmakers in China have reportedly urged Beijing to investigate the acquisition over concerns that it would give Nvidia too much control over a fundamental technology that gets used in phones and data centers worldwide.

“It’s a tough place at the moment with geopolitics so we’ll have to play that very carefully,” Segars told the FT, adding that regulatory approval across all of the countries it operates in will “take a long time.”

Many view the acquisition as a positive move, with Vishal Chatrath, CEO and co-founder of Cambridge AI start-up Secondmind, telling CNBC that Nvidia can unlock Arm’s “potential like never before.”

But the bid for the 30-year-old company has been criticized by opponents from the moment it was announced on Sep. 13.

Between Sept. 16 and Sept 28., 70% of the 1,771 I.T. experts surveyed by the Chartered Institute for I.T. said they think the U.K. government should intervene in the acquisition, while just 11% said they thought the sale would strengthen then U.K.’s position as “a world leader in digital technologies.”

The U.K. government, which could theoretically intervene under the Enterprise Act, said last month that it is “examining the deal.” The Competition and Markets Authority, a watchdog that monitors international acquisitions, could also weigh in.

Two tech investors, Nathan Benaich and Ian Hogarth, predicted in their “State of AI” report on Oct. 1 that the deal will ultimately be blocked by somebody.

Strong opposition


Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser was among the first to sound the alarm on the Nvidia deal, calling it “an absolute disaster for Cambridge, the U.K. and Europe,” while the U.K.’s Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband and Daniel Zeichner, a member of parliament for Cambridge, have also voiced concerns.

There are concerns that thousands of Arm employees could lose their jobs if Nvidia decides to move the company’s headquarters to the U.S. and make the company a division of Nvidia.

Some are also worried that the acquisition could destroy Arm’s business model, which involves licensing chip designs to around 500 other companies including several that compete directly with Nvidia.

“The one saving grace about Softbank was that it wasn’t a chip company, and retained Arm’s neutrality,” Hauser told the BBC. “If it becomes part of Nvidia, most of the licensees are competitors of Nvidia, and will of course then look for an alternative to Arm.”

Rene Haas, president of Arm’s IP Products Group, told Reuters on Wednesday that Arm will keep “firewalls” in place to ensure Nvidia does not access confidential information on Arm’s customers or get early access to Arm’s products.

Critics of the deal have asked Nvidia to make legally binding commitments that will protect U.K. jobs and Arm’s business in general. Nvidia says it is happy to make these commitments.

Huawei’s £1 billion R&D lab


Huawei was given the green light by a local council to build its R&D facility on June 25. At the time, the Shenzhen-headquartered company said the 50,000 square meter lab in Sawston would create 400 jobs. But the lab’s future looks to be increasingly uncertain.

In July, the U.K. announced it will ban Huawei from its 5G networks. U.K. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said mobile network operators in the country would be forced to stop buying equipment from Huawei by the end of the year. They will also be required to strip out Huawei gear from their infrastructure by 2027.


Huawei’s proposed R&D center in Cambridge, England.


Things took another turn for the worse on Thursday, when a parliamentary inquiry concluded that there is “clear evidence of collusion” between Huawei and the “Chinese Communist Party apparatus.”

The members of parliament suggested that Huawei’s equipment could be stripped out of the country’s networks earlier than planned.

Huawei, which already employs around 1,600 in the U.K. across 20 offices, said the report lacks credibility and that it is built on opinion rather than fact.

“We’re sure people will see through these groundless accusations of collusion and remember instead what Huawei has delivered for Britain over the past 20 years,” a spokesperson told CNBC.

On the R&D lab, the spokesperson said they’d heard nothing to suggest anything has changed.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
×