I'm not sure where you're getting your information about Nvidia's intent here. You seem so confident that I assumed they must have made public statements on the subject. When I searched though it doesn't seem that you've been arguing really aligns with what they're saying.What you and @Analog Kid are suggesting is precisely what Nvidia is promising not to do - to turn ARM into Nvidia’s personal CPU division. Nvidia’s entire position to get this through regulators rests on ARM remaining independent from them - Nvidia as a customer would get no special treatment and ARM would continue to operate as a neutral party.
It’s not just Qualcomm who have objected. They’ve just been the loudest. And the FTC are not overly fond of Qualcomm right now having just lost to them in court. And neither are all the other regulators who have had run ins with Qualcomm and are currently investigating the deal. Anyway Microsoft, Google, and others have objected as well. I should note that not every ARM customer has even beyond Apple.
Also I should separate this out from my personal feelings: having Nvidia’s deep pockets bankrolling ARM development wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I’d actually like to see that in many respects. But the implications are pretty obvious for why regulators are looking at this in askance.
Nvidia doesn’t need to buy ARM to have a CPU division. The already have one. Not designing their own *cores* isn’t the same thing as not designing their own *CPUs*. And, again, Nvidia has promised not to use development of upcoming core designs or information shared with ARM to get a leg up on its competitors. The FTC is simply saying that promise isn’t good enough, the conflicts of interest are too great with too much at stake. Apparently the FTC’s board’s decision was unanimous.
Now maybe the Brits, the EU, the Japanese, and the Chinese will come to different conclusions. Maybe the courts will come to a different conclusion as well if it goes there. But this was always going to be a tough hurdle to overcome and the only thing truly surprising is that it’s the US who filed first.
They do present this as a means to better compete with x86 in the market, particularly for AI applications (the G in GTC stands for AI...). They propose to do this by bringing Nvidia's AI assets (read: GPUs) to Arm. They state an intention to leverage the Arm licensing program to distribute their own IP. I'm not sure where you're getting your information from that Nvidia has other plans.
Now I don't think we should take Nvidia at their word, that would be foolish. I don't think we should assume they're not going to do what they're proposing because that's cynical in equal measure. I also don't think we should assume that government regulators are coming to the right conclusions, because these deals get at least as political as they are economic. My point has simply been that, while I generally don't like massive mergers like this, this seems aligned with what it would take for these companies to remain abreast of industry trends-- so is potential knock on effects to the competitiveness of third parties worth the risk of leaving Arm and Nvidia in less individually competitive positions.
I'd imagine Qualcomm has a similar level of access to Arm IP as Apple does, meaning this doesn't really affect either of them technologically. I'm not sure Apple needs Arm anymore, frankly. If Qualcomm reached down deep, they could probably get by without them as well. I don't see how Nvidia benefits from killing the goose here though. They make a more viable competitor to x86 if they're one of several suppliers. I'd imagine this worries Qualcomm more because it makes Nvidia more competitive, not because it makes Qualcomm less competitive.