SoftBank has agreed to sell Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40 billion.
SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate famous for its eccentric leader, Masayoshi Son, and big bets on the tech sector, has agreed to sell British chip designer Arm Holdings to Nvidia Corp, who has claimed fame for its graphics chips for videogames but now wants in on the markets of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars, in a deal for more than $40 billion.
Reuters reports that arm supplies the chip technology for virtually all mobile devices such as phones and tablets but is also expanding into processors for cars, datacenter services and other devices. The terms would mark a big win for the Japanese company which has struggled to jump-start growth in the business, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported on the deal earlier.
According to Money Control, the Nvidia-Arm deal would bring Nvidia’s technology through ARM’s network. As part of NVIDIA, ARM will continue to operate its open-licensing model while maintaining the global customer neutrality. Nvidia will build on Arm’s R&D presence in the UK, establishing a new global centre in AI research at Arm’s Cambridge campus. It will also invest in an Arm-powered AI supercomputer, training facilities for developers and a startup incubator, which is said to attract the world’s research talent and create a platform for innovation and industry partnerships in fields such as healthcare, robotics and self-driving cars.
“Arm will remain headquartered in Cambridge. We will expand on this great site and build a world-class AI research facility, supporting developments in healthcare, life sciences, robotics, self-driving cars and other fields. And, to attract researchers and scientists from the UK and around the world to conduct groundbreaking work, NVIDIA will build a state-of-the-art AI supercomputer, powered by Arm CPUs. Arm Cambridge will be a world-class technology centre,” Nvidia said in its statement.
