The giant Japanese firm, SoftBank Group, announces its intention to acquire Ampere Computing, a US chip startup, for $6.5 billion, which the company will fully pay in cash. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025.
Ampere Computing was founded by its current CEO, Chairman and Intel’s former president, Renee James, in 2017. The company creates data center central processing unit (CPU) chips using Arm Holdings’ computing architecture, which firms like Oracle use in their cloud computing infrastructure.
Renee stated that her company is excited to join SoftBank, and looks forward to advancing their AmpereOne® to upgrade Arm processors and AI. The Japanese firm also allows this US startup to operate as an independent subsidiary at their headquarters in Santa Clara, California.
As for SoftBank, its Chairman and CEO, Masayoshi Son, stated that Ampere’s expertise will advance the company’s commitment in AI innovation. The company has been focusing on AI infrastructure. For example, SoftBank announced its partnership with OpenAI last month,
Furthermore, the company is also involved with Donald Trump’s $500 billion AI infrastructure project called Stargate. SoftBank also paid $32 billion to acquire ARM Holdings in 2016. Their chip architecture consumes less energy and can be an alternative to x86 that Intel and AMD sell.
