Nvidia is set to win unconditional EU antitrust approval for its $6.8 billion acquisition of Israeli big data connectivity developer Mellanox Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:MLNX; TASE:MLNX), people familiar with the matter told "Reuters" on Wednesday.
When contacted by "Reuters," the European Commission, which is scheduled to decide on the deal by December 19, declined to comment. Nvidia and Mellanox also declined to comment.
The US regulator has already cleared the deal without conditions while approval is still pending in China where Mellanox has major customers such as Alibaba and Baidu. Approval by the Chinese authorities was feared to be the major stumbling block in the deal due to the US-China trade war, but recent signs that the two powers are reaching an agreement have been encouraging. Nevertheless, it looks unlikely that the deal will be completed on schedule by the end of the year.
Initially a provider of gaming chips, Nvidia now also provides chips to speed up artificial intelligence tasks such as teaching servers to recognize images. Nvidia outbid Intel to buy Mellanox, which produces chips that connect those servers together inside the data center.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 19, 2019
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