Such articles are heavilly misguided when they make distinctions between markets and governments. Governments serve economic interests.
They are part of the market. Governments want to gain ground over other governments for economic reasons. They are competing. The US didnt ban Huawei because they are immorally doing espionage. It is because both countries are fighting to gain the bigger pie of the wireless market. The information they collect and will collect, and the aspects of our societies that will be connected to the wireless network and cloud services are massive. They will have access to everything. From traffic circulation to what's in your fridge. Everything. The US knows what China does because thats what they do too and they are after the same thing as well.
It is the reason why US fought Huawei and China prevented the merger between NVIDA and ARM. The espionage and each government's efforts to expand their local businesses happen on behalf of interests.
A merger between NVIDIA and ARM would have excluded a massive economy in China from having access to the technology too. There is nothing innovative or good about that. Its an economic war.
In addition NVIDIA would have had access to a lot more information and technology than any of it's competitors that will want to get there like AMD and we are already having a strong oligopoly in that market.
If the market was really honest, open source and free or aiming towards innovation to help societies, companies would have been sharing information and technologies without hesitation, without owning patents or having exclusive access, without requiring mergers. But this is a profit driven economy. This is why China and the US government respond the way they do, this is why companies try to eliminate competition, and this is why regulators become necessary when in a truly honest and free market that strived towards the betterment of society they wouldnt have existed.
This is
kind of a controversial topic but I guess if I can add two quick cents: yeah technically speaking countries like the U.S and China are after the same things in terms of economic, political, technological power etc. And neither country is exactly perfect when it comes to aspects of their society that could be considered harmful or impractical to individuals from certain segments of groups or classes in those countries (though this can be said for virtually every country on the planet).
That said, and while I'm not at all a fan of the heavy, almost seemingly clique-like, coordinated levels of gatekeeping major tech companies and platforms have been engaging with in America (especially over the past year), at the end of the day I still have to look at things like the Nvidia/ARM deal from the perspective of, okay,
IF a corporation based in this country or that country were to acquire such a company, who would I rather it be? Well, just honestly speaking, I'd rather it be a company in the country I actually reside in, in a country that I feel has a comparatively better track record on civil rights, human rights, and individual freedoms. The country that hasn't (yet) moved onto a completely social credit-based society (though in a lot of ways it feels like America is trying very hard to do this). The country that a person as I am, would feel more comfortable living in WRT things socially, economically and so forth.
I know that may sound
incredibly selfish but it's just what I would say off the top of my head, because such major events, they do trickle down eventually to us (this is no commentary whatsoever on the idea of trickle-down economics, btw xD). And I'm pretty sure there are many citizens in China who feel the same way as I on such a matter, just replace America with China and there you go. Same to those across the pond in various countries like Britain or the U.K. Especially considering, just for a second, that China in particular doesn't necessarily "play fair" anyway in terms of foreign market entities when it comes to certain types of business with Chinese-based companies (foreign companies are not allowed to make purchases of or investments in Chinese companies, for starters, nor buy up any land in China, but the inverse is allowed for Chinese companies and investors WRT other countries, particularly America).
So, in a way, when or if Nvidia were to acquire a company like ARM, even though I know I get little benefit in it (no stock ownership and none of that licensing money would be lining my own pockets. If anything, money would probably leave my pockets to fill Nvidia's xD), in a way I would kind of ironically consider is karma, in a sense. I agree with your points insofar as how Nvidia buying ARM would be nothing in terms of generating genuine innovation and that it'd essentially be economic war but...to think a little outside the box here, sometimes you
HAVE to play the game of economic war to win, in order to ensure a healthy domestic economy to drive further genuine innovation in the first place.
