Softbank said Wednesday that it had agreed to pay $ 6.5 billion for the Silicon Valley Chip Start-up Ampere Computing, doubling in a bet that technology from smartphones would dominate the world’s data centers.
The deal also reflects the Japanese group’s belief that Ampere chips can begin to play an important role in artificial intelligence, where Nvidia has gained the most rewards so far.
Ampere was founded eight years ago to sell brands for technology -based data centers by ARM Holdings, a British company that allows chip plans that have powered almost all mobile phones. Softbank, who bought ARM in 2016, works to have brands based on ARM technology used more broadly for different tasks.
“The future of artificial superintelligence requires innovative computing power,” said Masayoshi Son, president and CEO of softbank, in prepared observations. “Ampere’s expertise in high performance semiconductors and computers will help to accelerate this vision and deepen our commitment to AI innovation in the United States.”
Softbank said it will function as AMPERE as a subsidiary that belongs entirely by its own name.
The sale comes in the midst of a turmoil of the agreements and the changing alliances driven by a furious demand for brands used to supply AI applications such as Openai Chatgpt. In particular, Softbank has announced a series of transactions in an effort to play a larger role in the field.
In his most aggressive move to date, Mr Son joined President Trump in January to announce an initiative called Stargate, along with Sam Altman, head of Openai and Larry Ellison, president and founder of the Oracle software manufacturer, who is the largest investor.
Mr Son, Mr Altman and Mr Ellison said Stargate would invest up to $ 500 billion to build a series of US data centers to feed Openai’s functions, starting from a location in Texas. Nvidia was referred to as a key technology partner for the venture. It provides brands called graphics or GPU treatment plants, which represent most of the AI ​​calculations.
Another type of chip also plays central roles in the AI, these are the microprocessors designed by Intel, advanced micro -businesses and ARMs that handle computers of computers. These chips, which operate alongside GPUs and are called “host” processors, manage AI tasks, such as building software programs called models. A microprocessor is usually used for every four Nvidia GPU sold.
These microprocessors are also sometimes used to handle an AI task called “inclusion”, which includes providing answers to Questions to Chatbots. So far, Intel and AMD chips have represented almost all the AI ​​processors and microprocessors used for the conclusion.
But some influence companies want to change it. Nvidia has begun to push the arm processors strongly as an option for host microprocessors instead of Intel or AMD chips.
A lot of money is at stake. IDC, a market research company, predicts that the microprocessor market sold for AI will increase to $ 33 billion by $ 2030 from $ 12.5 billion in 2025.
AMD and Intel pointed out that shift to ARM may require painful changes to the software. They added that Nvidia did not exclusively support arm technology and continued to support their chips as a choice along with the latest GPUs.
“Nvidia is still an important partner of ours,” said Ronak Singhal, leader of the Intel Xeon Center series.
Ampere is mainly allocated to its microprocessor trade for general purpose jobs. But recently announced plans for a chip, called Aurora, which has up to 512 small computers of computing machines, a design that the company says is particularly suitable for AI applications.
The company, led by Renée James, a former Intel executive, had some successes. However, the largest expenditure in the field-gypsy companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft-have recently focused more on the development of their own microprocessors based on ARM technology, rather than based on boot.
Oracle is an exception. It has offered electronic services supported by Ampere Chips and has revealed investment in shares and debt to the company. Since May, Oracle said it had a 29 % share in Ampere. It put the value of its investments after gaining losses of $ 1.5 billion.
As part of the market, Oracle and Carlyle Group, the large private stock company that is also an important investor, has agreed to sell their shares to Ampere, Softbank said.
Bloomberg reported last month that Softbank was close to a deal to buy Ampere.
