UK officials stated that they are preparing an antitrust investigation of Nvidia Corp.’s $40 Billion deal to obtain British chip designer Arm from SoftBank Group Corp., increasing one of what is possibly to be numerous regulatory obstacles around the world for a proposed merger that could reshape the semiconductor industry.Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority stated on Wednesday that it was inviting third parties to give their opinion on the merger, ahead of a formal antitrust probe later this year. The investigation will evaluate the deal’s likely effects on competition in the UK and won’t consider national security, though other British-government arms could intervene on that matter.Executives at both Nvidia and Arm, a Cambridge, England Company owned by Japan’s SoftBank, have stated that they anticipated to go through regulatory approval processes around the world. A Nvidia spokesman said on Wednesday that the company always expected the approval process to take 18 months from the signing of the deal, which was in September.