Japanese investor SoftBank announced on Wednesday that it is planning to acquire semiconductor designer Ampere in a $6.5 billion all-cash deal. The news comes amid a series of strategic investments by SoftBank in AI this year.
Under the new agreement, Ampere will retain its name and act as a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, the press release said. The statement also noted that as part of the acquisition, Ampere’s lead investors — Carlyle and Oracle Corp.— are selling their respective positions in Ampere.
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Founded in 2018 by former Intel executive Renée James, Ampere is a semiconductor design company with an innovative approach to CPU design focused on high-performance, energy efficient, sustainable cloud computing.
“With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies,” said James, founder and CEO of Ampere. “This is a fantastic outcome for our team, and we are excited to drive forward our AmpereOne® roadmap for high performance Arm processors and AI.”
SoftBank, the largest shareholder of Arm Holdings, aligns closely with Ampere, which has developed a server chip built on the ARM compute platform, making them strong strategic partners.
What sets Ampere apart from its contenders is its focus on energy efficient high-performance computing, driving sustainable computing for the cloud, AI inferencing, and edge applications.
Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Ampere claims that its processors significantly reduce power consumption across all cloud infrastructures and workloads, especially AI. With AI at its boom currently, Ampere serving such evolving technologies with reliable chips makes the chipmaker a popular choice for investors.
Some of Ampere’s clients include Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, and Tencent.
“The future of Artificial Super Intelligence requires breakthrough computing power,” said Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. “Ampere’s expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision, and deepens our commitment to AI innovation in the United States.
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As SoftBank Group broadens its AI infrastructure investments in ventures such as Cristal Intelligence and Stargate, the acquisition will help enhance SoftBank Group’s capabilities in key areas and accelerate its growth initiatives, the investment company said.
In January, SoftBank Group led a $40 billion funding round for OpenAI, valuing the company at $340 billion, nearly doubling its valuation from a few months prior. This week, AI search startup Perplexity joined hands with SoftBank to expand its services in Japan.