SoftBank Group to acquire Ampere Computing in US$6.5 billion AI-focused deal
Ampere makes data centre central processing unit (CPU) chips based on a computing architecture from Arm Holdings
SoftBank Group said on Wednesday it would acquire Ampere Computing, a US chip start-up founded by the former president of Intel that is increasingly focused on artificial intelligence, in a US$6.5 billion all-cash deal.
Ampere makes data centre central processing unit (CPU) chips based on a computing architecture from Arm Holdings that are used by firms such as Oracle in their cloud computing infrastructure.
As part of the deal, Ampere’s biggest investors, Oracle and Carlyle Group, will sell their respective positions in the company, SoftBank said in a statement.
Founded in 2018 by Intel veteran Renee James, Ampere built CPUs with its own custom computing core technology, a step usually only taken by much larger firms like Apple or Qualcomm.
But Arm ultimately became a competitor as it sought to work directly with customers such as Microsoft and Google to help them build their own custom Arm-based CPUs.