{"id":501,"date":"2025-03-21T18:42:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T18:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/?p=4299117"},"modified":"2025-03-21T18:42:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T18:42:28","slug":"softbank-expands-ai-portfolio-with-6-5b-acquisition-of-chip-startup-ampere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.tecnoartesanos.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/softbank-expands-ai-portfolio-with-6-5b-acquisition-of-chip-startup-ampere\/","title":{"rendered":"SoftBank Expands AI Portfolio with $6.5B Acquisition of Chip Startup Ampere"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_4299121\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4299121\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4299121\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition.jpg\" alt=\"Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-1024x658.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-768x494.jpg 768w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-50x32.jpg 50w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-770x495.jpg 770w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-370x238.jpg 370w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-270x174.jpg 270w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-740x476.jpg 740w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-540x347.jpg 540w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-1110x714.jpg 1110w, https:\/\/assets.techrepublic.com\/uploads\/2025\/03\/tr_20250321-news-softbank-ampere-acquisition-810x521.jpg 810w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4299121\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group. Image: SoftBank YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SoftBank has announced plans to acquire the chip startup Ampere for $6.5 billion in an all-cash deal that \u201cbroadens its AI infrastructure investments.\u201d For the last eight years, Ampere has been designing high-performance processors tailored for cloud computing, AI workloads, and data centres.<\/p>\n<p>Ampere\u2019s lead investors, private equity firm Carlyle and IT giant Oracle, will sell their shares, which equate to 59.65% and 32.27% stakes in the company, respectively, according to SoftBank. The Japanese telco will retain Ampere as an independent subsidiary based in Santa Clara, once the deal closes in the second half of 2025.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SEE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/article\/interim-rule-artificial-intelligence-diffusion\/\">US Chip Export Rule Proposes Limits to Thwart Chinese GPUs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<aside class=\"pinbox right\">\n<h3 class=\"heading\">More must-read AI coverage<\/h3>\n<\/aside>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"SoftBanks_goal_of_expanding_its_AI_offerings_and_investments\"><\/span>SoftBank\u2019s goal of expanding its AI offerings and investments<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>SoftBank has been aiming to bolster its AI offerings for a while; the company was reportedly considering acquiring a minority stake in Ampere in 2021, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-10-19\/softbank-weighs-stake-in-ampere-valuing-chipmaker-at-8-billion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bloomberg<\/a>, but no deal materialized.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, it acquired Arm Holdings, a semiconductor design company that licenses its blueprints out to the tech giants that handle implementation and manufacturing, for $31 billion. Arm went public in 2023, but SoftBank retains a majority stake. The chip designer recently announced that it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/article\/arm-cpu-qualcomm-nvidia\/\">may start selling its own CPUs<\/a>, which will soon turn it into a fierce competitor to the likes of Nvidia and Qualcomm.<\/p>\n<p>SoftBank is an initial equity funder in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/article\/openai-oracle-softbank-us-ai-infrastructure\/\">Stargate Project<\/a>, which will contribute $500 billion in total to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/article\/generative-ai-trends-2025\/\">generative AI<\/a> infrastructure, like data centres, in the U.S. over four years. It has also partnered with OpenAI on the development of <a href=\"https:\/\/group.softbank\/en\/news\/press\/20250203_0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cCristal intelligence\u201d<\/a>, a custom enterprise AI service, and recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.softbank.jp\/corp\/news\/press\/sbkk\/2025\/20250314_01\/?sbpr=info\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bought an old Sharp factory in Japan<\/a> to build an AI data centre.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_Ampere_will_help_accelerate_SoftBanks_AI_vision\"><\/span>How Ampere will help accelerate SoftBank\u2019s AI vision<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/group.softbank\/en\/news\/press\/20250320_0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">According to SoftBank<\/a>, Ampere currently employs about 1,000 semiconductor engineers. Recently, the company\u2019s focus has been developing energy-efficient chips for AI workloads, and its CEO Ren\u00e9e James, is the former president of Intel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe future of Artificial Super Intelligence requires breakthrough computing power,\u201d said Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group, in a statement. \u201cAmpere\u2019s expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision, and deepen our commitment to AI innovation in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ampere\u2019s James added, \u201cThis is a fantastic outcome for our team, and we are excited to drive forward our AmpereOne roadmap for high performance Arm processors and AI.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group. Image: SoftBank YouTube SoftBank has announced plans to acquire the chip startup Ampere for $6.5 billion in an all-cash deal that \u201cbroadens its AI infrastructure investments.\u201d For the last eight years, Ampere has been designing high-performance processors tailored for cloud computing, AI workloads, and data [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SoftBank Expands AI Portfolio with $6.5B Acquisition of Chip Startup Ampere - TecnoArtesanos Tech Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.tecnoartesanos.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/softbank-expands-ai-portfolio-with-6-5b-acquisition-of-chip-startup-ampere\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SoftBank Expands AI Portfolio with $6.5B Acquisition of Chip Startup Ampere - TecnoArtesanos Tech Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group. Image: SoftBank YouTube SoftBank has announced plans to acquire the chip startup Ampere for $6.5 billion in an all-cash deal that \u201cbroadens its AI infrastructure investments.\u201d For the last eight years, Ampere has been designing high-performance processors tailored for cloud computing, AI workloads, and data [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.tecnoartesanos.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/softbank-expands-ai-portfolio-with-6-5b-acquisition-of-chip-startup-ampere\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TecnoArtesanos Tech Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-21T18:42:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sergio Morales\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sergio Morales\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.tecnoartesanos.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/softbank-expands-ai-portfolio-with-6-5b-acquisition-of-chip-startup-ampere\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.tecnoartesanos.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/softbank-expands-ai-portfolio-with-6-5b-acquisition-of-chip-startup-ampere\/\",\"name\":\"SoftBank Expands AI Portfolio with $6.5B Acquisition of Chip Startup Ampere - 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