After Nvidia’s 200% rally this year, investors look to the Arm IPO — but the two are very different
In this photo illustration, Nvidia logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen in front of ARM logo.
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Arm is preparing for a blockbuster initial public offering at a time when investors are very interested in both semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
Nvidia’s 200% rally this year is evidence of this. Arm is looking to raise nearly $5 billion from the IPO which would value it at over $50 billion. And demand is high with Reuters reporting that the company could price its shares at the top of its indicated range or possibly even above it.
Part of that may be down to Softbank, the owner of Arm, and its positioning of the British chip designer as an AI play. Arm will be “central” to the transition to AI-enabled computing, the company said in its IPO prospectus.
But the company is a different proposition to Nvidia and is unlikely to see the benefits of the AI boom in the near-term, analysts told CNBC.
Nvidia vs. Arm: A comparison
AI has been thrust into the spotlight, in large part thanks to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This is a technology known as generative AI because the AI is able to generate answers in response to user prompts.
Such an AI is based on a model which is trained on huge amounts of data. A vast amount of computing power is required to train these AI models.
Nvidia designs a type of semiconductor called a graphics processing unit or GPU, which go into data centers to train and run these AI models.
The soaring interest in generative AI has seen Nvidia’s earnings surge.
Arm, meanwhile, is a company that designs the blueprint or “architectures” of certain semiconductors. These architectures are the overall designs, including components and programming language instructions that other companies use to build chips. Arm mainly designs central processing units or CPUs.
Arm-based CPUs are in 99% of the world’s smartphones including from major players like Apple.
While CPUs are also required in the data center, they’re often used in conjunction with a GPU to train data, but not always.
Arm makes most of its money from royalties and licensing its architecture. More than 50% of this revenue comes from smartphones and consumer electronics. So far, it is not seeing a big boost from AI.
“Growth in the near term for Arm is really not about AI, it’s about mobile, it’s about royalty increases,” Jamie Mills O’Brien, investment director at Abrdn, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Monday.
“In the longer term, I think Arm is trying to focus investors minds on the potential … AI in the edge, AI in the data center, but at the moment that’s not a huge part of the company’s exposure.”
Arm’s future in AI
Arm’s AI future is unlikely to come from the huge amounts of chips required to train big data models.
Instead, it’s more likely to be a major player in AI on the “edge.” This phrase refers to AI processes carried out on a device, such as a smartphone, rather than in the cloud, like ChatGPT.
For this to happen, devices will require low-power but high-performance chips able to carry out the computing required for AI applications. Arm is designing the architecture for these chips.
“If you’re doing AI on a smartphone or car you’re not going to have that same level of compute power, so you need to optimize the model to run locally,” Peter Richardson, research director at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.
“Those processors will almost certainly be Arm-based”
Arm said in its IPO filing that its processors already run AI workloads “and every smartphone currently in the market efficiently runs AI inference applications, such as voice recognition and applying filters to digital images.”
However, Arm is unlikely to see the benefit from AI filter through to its revenue for at least three-to-five years, Richard Windsor, founder of Radio Free Mobile, told CNBC.
What SoftBank has been required to do is to sell Arm as an AI company like Nvidia,” Windsor said.
“Now, in the long term absolutely, I’m a big proponent on running AI on end-devices, it makes an awful lot of economic sense for the provider of the service, and also much more in general in terms of the quality of the service, privacy and security and so on and so forth. But those revenues are not accruing to Arm right now.”
A driver for an independent contractor to FedEx delivers packages on Cyber Monday in New York, US, on Monday, Nov. 27, 2023.
Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order shutting the de minimis trade loophole, effective May 2.
Trump in February abruptly ended the de minimis trade exemption, which allows shipments worth less than $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free. The order overwhelmed U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees and caused the U.S. Postal Service to temporarily halt packages from China and Hong Kong. Within days of its announcement, Trump reversed course and delayed the cancellation of the provision.
Wednesday’s announcement, which came alongside a set of sweeping new tariffs, gives customs officials, retailers and logistics companies more time to prepare. Goods that qualify under the de minimis exemption will be subject to a duty of either 30% of their value, or $25 per item. That rate will increase to $50 per item on June 1, the White House said.
Use of the de minimis provision has exploded in recent years as shoppers flock to Chinese e-commerce companies Temu and Shein, which offer ultra-low cost apparel, electronics and other items. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said it processed more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments in 2024, up from over 1 billion shipments in 2023.
Critics of the provision say it provides an unfair advantage to Chinese e-commerce companies and creates an influx of packages that are “subject to minimal documentation and inspection,” raising concerns around counterfeit and unsafe goods.
The Trump administration has sought to close the loophole over concerns that it facilitates shipments of fentanyl and other illicit substances on the claims that the packages are less likely to be inspected by customs agents.
Temu and Shein have taken steps to grow their operations in the U.S. as the de minimis loophole has come under greater scrutiny. After onboarding sellers with inventory in U.S. warehouses, Temu recently began steering shoppers to those items on its website, allowing it to speed up deliveries. Shein opened distribution centers in states including Illinois and California in 2022, and a supply chain hub in Seattle last year.
WATCH: President Trump signs executive orders for reciprocal tariffs
Apple CEO Tim Cook, center, watches during the inauguration ceremonies for President Donald Trump, right, and Vice President JD Vance, left, in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.
Shawn Thew | Afp | Getty Images
Apple slid more than 6% in late trading Wednesday and led a broader decline in tech stocks after President Donald Trump announced new tariffs of between 10% and 49% on imported goods.
The majority of Apple’s revenue comes from devices manufactured primarily in China and a handful of other Asian countries. Nvidia, which manufactures new chips in Taiwan and assembles its artificial intelligence systems in Mexico and elsewhere, fell about 4%, while electric vehicle company Tesla dropped 4.5%.
Across the rest of the megacap universe, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta all dropped between 2.5% and 5%, and Microsoft was down by almost 2%.
If Apple’s postmarket loss is matched in regular trading Thursday, it would be the steepest decline for the stock since September 2020.
Trump on Wednesday afternoon said the new taxes on imported goods would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the country. He announced a 10% blanket tariff on all imports, and higher duties for specific countries, including 34% for China, 20% for European nations, and 24% for Japanese imports, based on what tariffs they charge on U.S. exports, Trump said.
“We will supercharge our domestic industrial base, we will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers,” Trump said during his speech. “Ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.”
Stocks broadly got hit by Trump’s announcements. An exchange-traded fund tracking the S&P 500 slid 2.8%, while an ETF following the Nasdaq 100 lost more than 3%.
During his speech, Trump praised Apple, Meta, and Nvidia for spending money and investing in the United States.
“Apple is going to spend $500 billion, they never spent money like that here,” Trump said. “They’re going to build their plants here.”
The Nasdaq just wrapped up its worst quarter since 2022, dropping 10% in the first three months of the year, though the tech-heavy index rose in each of the first two days of the second quarter.
WATCH: President Trump signs executive orders for reciprocal tariffs
Guests including Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk attend the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th president of the United States.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson | Getty Images
Amazon submitted a bid to the White House to purchase the social media app TikTok from its Chinese owners, CNBC has confirmed.
The company sent its proposal in a letter this week to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential. The parties aren’t treating the bid seriously, however, given that it was submitted just days before a deadline staving off a U.S. ban is set to expire, the person said.
Amazon declined to comment.
The e-commerce company’s offer, which was first reported by The New York Times, comes as TikTok’s fate in the U.S. is up in the air. The short-form video app faces another potential shutdown in the U.S. on April 5 if ByteDance, its parent company, can’t reach a deal to divest TikTok’s American operations. Lawmakers passed a bill last year setting a Jan. 19 deadline for the sale, but Trump signed an executive order granting a 75-day extension for a potential deal.
Trump could announce a decision on TikTok’s fate in the U.S. as soon as Wednesday, sources familiar with the situation told CNBC’s David Faber. Mobile technology company AppLovin has also made a bid for TikTok, Faber reported separately, citing sources familiar with the matter.
TikTok has emerged as a major hub for e-commerce as it has poured money into growing its online marketplace, called TikTok Shop. TikTok’s lucrative marketplace, coupled with the app’s more than 170 million users, could be an attractive asset for Amazon. Following TikTok’s success, Amazon launched and then shuttered a short-form video service of its own.
Last August, the two companies formed a partnership that allowed TikTok users to link their account with Amazon and make purchases from the site without leaving the app. The deal attracted scrutiny from lawmakers who were concerned about its potential national security risks.
WATCH: How TikTok Shop is beating Amazon and Temu in social shopping
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