Arm AI chips release

SoftBank is in discussion with contract manufacturers including Taiwan’s TSMC to produce the AI chips, the report added. UK-based Arm will set up an AI chip division and aim to build a prototype by spring 2025. Mass production will be handled by contract manufacturers and is expected to start in the autumn of 2025 as per report.

SoftBank Group’s Arm Holdings plans to develop artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, seeking to launch the first products in 2025.

Softbank’s Arm AI chips

Arm will pay for initial development costs, which may total hundreds of billions of yen, with SoftBank also contributing, the report said.

Once a mass-production system is established, the AI chip business could be spun off and placed under SoftBank, the newspaper said, adding that SoftBank is already negotiating with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC) and others over manufacturing, looking to secure production capacity.

Arm’s technology

Arm which designs the fundamental architecture upon which the chips are built. After building the chip it sells licenses for its designs to companies such as Qualcomm and Nvidia, while charging royalty fees on each sale they make. The company claims 99% of premium smartphones are powered by Arm technology.

The company will bear the initial development costs of the AI chips, which could reach “hundreds of billions of yen,” according to the report. After a mass-production system has been set up, Arm’s AI chip business could be “spun off and placed under SoftBank.”

Arm’s valuation

Arm shares have risen nearly 45% so far this year, and its market capitalization stands at over $113 billion, according to LSEG data. The company was acquired by SoftBank in 2016 for $32 billion, and was listed on the Nasdaq last year.

Reduce dependency Nvidia

The British chip designer, which licenses its chip designs and earns funds through royalties, has been expanding into the data-center market, where operators are looking to build their own chips to power new AI models and reduce their reliance on dominant supplier Nvidia.

SoftBank’s Arm

SoftBank founded and helmed by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, is betting big on AI and reportedly plans to invest $960 million by next year to boost its computing facilities for generative AI. In June, Son said SoftBank wants to “be [in] the leading position for the AI revolution.”

SoftBank is looking to build AI data centers, powered by homegrown chips, across the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East as soon as 2026, Nikkei said.

SoftBank is expected to slip back into the red when it reports earnings on Monday. Investors are eagerly awaiting clues about new growth investments as the company has ample liquidity and can monetize its huge holding in Arm, whose share price roughly doubled in February on excitement over AI.

 Arm’s shares

Bets that Arm will benefit from a surge in AI computing have doubled its share price since its IPO last September. Giving it a market value of more than $100 billion. Arm shares closed trading last week at $108.84, after gaining 5.1% during Friday’s session.

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A Timeline of Controversial Takeover 

Nvidia, the largest chip maker in the U.S. by market capitalization, announced in September 2020 that would acquire Arm for $40 billion as part of a multi-billion dollar push to expand in the surging markets for semiconductors. The acquisition was scheduled to close by March 2022, where Nvidia would pay SoftBank $21.5 billion in stock and $12 billion in cash. In addition, if Arm met certain financial targets. Nvidia agreed to pay SoftBank up to $5 billion more. The sale was subject to regulatory approval from China, the EU, the UK, and the US.

The planned acquisition collapsed last week due to significant regulatory uncertainty, the companies said in a joint statement.

Qualcomm, the leading manufacturer of mobile communications chips, had raised a red flag over the deal. Other clients of Arm were also worried about the potential acquisition. Based in Cambridge, England, Arm makes technology that is at the core of most of the world’s smartphones, as well as products from computers to cars. Arm offers both architectural licenses and “hard” IP licenses. This license allows its clients like Apple, AMD, Huawei, Intel, Qualcomm, and Samsung to build an Arm-compatible processor with a custom micro-architecture. The much-hyped Nvidia-Arm deal was to generate a fresh stream of high-margin licensing revenue to the U.S. chipmaker.

The wave of concerns came after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the Nvidia-Arm deal on antitrust grounds. “The proposed vertical deal would give one of the largest chip companies control over the computing technology and designs that rival firms rely on to develop their own competing chips,” the FTC said in a statement in December.

The purchase faced a great deal of scrutiny from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK and regulators in the EU on grounds that the deal risked suffocating innovation and harming competition.

SoftBank Pitches IPO for Arm 

SoftBank said the $1.25 billion deposit it had received as part of the sale is non-refundable and will be recognized as profit in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022.  The Japanese conglomerate is currently pitching an IPO listed on the tech-focused Nasdaq stock market within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023.

“The U.S… that’s the market that we are looking at when it comes to listing Arm, and most likely,” Masayoshi Son, the CEO of Japan’s SoftBank, said in a press briefing Tuesday. “But wherever it is, the U.S. in the market that we’re looking at for the listing of Arm.” 

What’s worrisome for shareholders is that the Japanese conglomerate might struggle to break even from the Arm IPO. SoftBank’s profit plunged 98% in the quarter through December, as the value of its investments declined.

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