ARM Holdings—US FTC opened antitrust investigation into whether Arm will degrade CPU licenses to competitors while selling its own chips

The US Federal Trade Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation into Arm Holdings, notifying the UK-based, SoftBank-majority-owned chip designer in early 2026 and issuing a document-preservation demand, with the probe becoming public via Bloomberg on May 15, 2026. Investigators are examining whether Arm intends to refuse or degrade the quality of its CPU architecture licenses for third-party customers such as Apple, Qualcomm, and Nvidia while simultaneously ramping up its own chip business. The investigation follows Arm's March 2026 announcement of the 'Arm AGI CPU,' a 136-core data-center processor co-developed with Meta -- the company's first production silicon after roughly 35 years as a neutral licensor -- which put Arm in direct competition with its own licensees. Arm shares fell about 8.5% on news of the probe. The investigation follows a related complaint by licensee Qualcomm to competition authorities in the US, EU, and South Korea over Arm's licensing practices.