Arm Holdings, the maker of the popular Arm architecture used by Qualcomm, Apple, and several other companies, is facing an antitrust investigation as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) looks into the company’s operation. Bloomberg reports that the FTC is determining if the company is trying to monopolize the Arm architecture and either only give customers lower quality designs for their own semiconductors or outright deny them access to its licenses. The move comes as Arm launched its own AGI CPU focused on data centers in March 2026, a significant departure from the company, whose business previously focused on licensing its chip designs to other companies.
The company’s legal troubles began when it sued Qualcomm, the biggest manufacturer of smartphone chips, for using Nuvia’s ARM licenses after it acquired the startup in 2022. Arm Holdings argued that the smartphone chipmaker cannot use Nuvia’s licenses after its acquisition, and that it should have acquired a new one to continue using the startup’s designs based on Arm licenses. Arm ultimately lost the case, allowing Qualcomm to continue using the Oryon cores it acquired from Nuvia.
The Qualcomm lawsuit broke the longstanding relationship the two companies had, and it also opened a can of worms for Arm. The former launched a global antitrust campaign against the latter because of the case, saying that it was using its dominant market position to prevent competition. It reached out to the European Commission, the U.S. FTC, and Korea’s Fair Trade Commission to present its case, with the Korean government agency raiding Arm’s Seoul office in November 2025.
While the x86 processor still has the advantage when it comes to desktops and laptops, its advantage is slowly being eroded by Arm-based Apple Silicon and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X-series chips. On the other hand, it has cornered the mobile market, with Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek, and other mobile device chipmakers using Arm architecture. Some analysts also say that it will eventually dominate the AI server industry, with over 90% of custom processors expected to use an Arm chip by 2029.
Arm’s launch of its own AGI processor has got its customers (and now potential competitors as well) wary of its status as both chip designer and manufacturer. Arm did not introduce a processor for consumer computing, meaning it hasn’t directly challenged some of its biggest customers. However, the fact that it has expanded into building physical chips has worried them that it could leverage the popularity of the Arm architecture to gain an unfair advantage and limit competition.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
