The sources claim that as the race for the top spot in artificial intelligence processors intensifies, SoftBank Group subsidiary Arm plans to launch AI chips by year’s end. By spring 2025, an AI chip unit of the U.K.-based chip designer—in which SoftBank owns a 90% stake—will aim to be established.
To develop the AI chips, SoftBank is in talks with contract manufacturers, such as Taiwan’s TSMC. Mass production is expected to start in the fall of 2025. Arm creates the core architecture that serves as the foundation for the processors. After that, it charges royalties on each sale that businesses like Qualcomm and Nvidia make for licenses to use its designs. The company asserts that Arm technology powers 99% of high-end smartphones.
The AI chips’ initial development costs, which could total “hundreds of billions of yen,” will be covered by the corporation. Arm’s artificial intelligence chip division may be “spun off and placed under SoftBank” once a mass-production infrastructure is established.
Arm shares have increased by around 45% so far in 2024, and its market capitalization is now over $113 billion. In 2016, SoftBank paid $32 billion to acquire a company that had previously been listed on the Nasdaq.
Founded and helmed by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, SoftBank is betting big on AI and reportedly plans to invest $960 million by next year to boost its computing facilities for generative AI. Masayoshi Son said SoftBank wants to “be in the leading position for the AI revolution.”
SoftBank plans to construct AI data centers around the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, powered by in-house chips.
