RISC-V is a huge problem for ARM.
It is? An open source but still mostly experimental CPU based upon CPU technology from the 1980s? With virtually no implementations that run at efficiencies close to what's in the average cellphone, let alone what's in a desktop or server?
RISC-V is gaining a lot of traction lately, with for example Android announcing support for it. Also Chinese hardware makers are looking at it as a way to be more sanctions-proof.
ARM is based on the same 1980's RISC base, while the other big player (x86-64) is based on technology from the 1970's. Not all old ideas are outdated: many programming languages are based on fundamental ideas from the 1960's.
For a long time, ARM itself was only used for low-power devices, but Apple's M1 showed that the architecture is suitable for high performance as well. If enough resources are thrown at desiging RISC-V chips, I don't see why it wouldn't be able to perform.
How? And given RISC-V's main virtue right now is in being a free-for-all design that can easily be embedded in a larger ASIC/PAL/etc, how is bankrolling the fabbing of its own CPUs going to help fight that? That's like Microsoft deciding Linux is a huge threat so deciding to sell more XBoxes.
It ensures that there will be at least one customer for ARM's designs: their own chips division. If that is their reasoning, they must be pretty desperate. But the only other explanation I can think of is that ARM doesn't realize that competing with their own customers will make it more difficult to sell licenses, which seems even less likely.