Nvidia Fully Exits Arm Holdings Stake After Failed Acquisition Attempt

Nvidia has liquidated its entire remaining stake in Arm Holdings, selling 1.1 million shares during Q4 2025 according to regulatory filings. Based on Arm's closing price of $127.27 on February 16, 2026, the shares were valued at approximately $140 million. This divestment brings Nvidia's ownership in Arm to zero, closing a chapter that began with Nvidia's failed $40 billion acquisition attempt in 2020-2022.

The sale represents the final unwinding of Nvidia's strategic position in Arm after regulators blocked its proposed acquisition over competition concerns. When the deal collapsed in 2022, Nvidia retained a minority stake that became publicly tradable following Arm's September 2023 IPO. At IPO, Arm shares priced at $51 – meaning Nvidia's sale likely captured significant appreciation given Arm's current $127 trading price.

For Nvidia, this is a portfolio normalization rather than a strategic shift. The company maintains licensing agreements to use Arm's architecture in products like its Grace server CPUs, but no longer holds equity that could complicate relationships with regulators or other Arm licensees. NVIDIA's core focus remains GPU acceleration and AI infrastructure, where it recently announced a multi-billion dollar partnership with Meta for Blackwell GPUs.

Arm faces no material impact from the divestment. As an independent IP licensor, Arm's business model depends on neutral access to its architecture by hundreds of semiconductor companies. The company continues benefiting from rising demand in data center and AI applications, though faces challenges in smartphone market saturation and increasing RISC-V competition.

Timing considerations:

• Q4 2025 sales coincided with Arm shares trading between $80-$120
• Nvidia likely captured gains during a rally driven by AI infrastructure demand
• Proceeds represent less than 0.1% of Nvidia's $1.7 trillion market cap

Technical context:

• Arm's royalty-based model generates revenue per chip shipped
• NVIDIA remains an architecture licensee despite equity exit
• No special access or technical collaboration changes result from the sale

Market reactions appear muted given the transaction's modest scale relative to both companies' valuations. Arm shares showed no significant movement post-disclosure, while Nvidia continues trading near all-time highs driven by AI infrastructure demand.

This divestment concludes a five-year strategic detour for Nvidia while affirming Arm's independence in the semiconductor ecosystem. Both companies now operate with clearer boundaries in an industry where architecture licensing and chip production increasingly intersect with AI acceleration.

Arm Investor Relations | NVIDIA Investor Relations