Shares in ARM Holdings have risen after it was reported that the British chip designer is developing its own chip.
The Financial Times reported that ARM plans to launch its own chip this year after securing Meta Platforms as one of its first customers. This is a major departure from ARM’s normal business model of licensing its chip blueprints to other companies.
And this is not the first time that it has been reported that ARM is developing its own chip. In May 2024 Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive of ARM’s owner SoftBank, admitted the British chip designer was developing its own artificial intelligence (AI) chips, with the first products due out in 2025.
ARM chips
It was reported at the time that ARM was to set up an AI chip division and produce a prototype by spring 2025, with mass production beginning with contract chip makers in the autumn 2025.
But now the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the UK-based group’s plans, reported that ARM chief executive Rene Haas will unveil the first chip that it has made in-house as early as this summer.
As a consequence of the report, ARM shares jumped more than 6 percent to $164.83, and on Friday 1pm GMT is trading at $163.30.
Stargate project
It should be remembered that Softbank’s Masayoshi Son had stood alongside Donald Trump, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and US President Donald Trump, when they announced a joint venture called the ‘Stargate Project’ that will drive a $500 billion AI infrastructure investment in the United States.
“The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States,” they announced. “We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately.”
Out of the initial equity funders in Stargate (SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX), SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners.
SoftBank meanwhile has financial responsibility, and OpenAI has operational responsibility.
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son will be the chairman.
Meanwhile ARM, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and OpenAI will be the key initial technology partners to build and operate a computing system.
Sir Jony Ive
According to the Financial Times, ARM’s chip is expected to be a server CPU designed for large data centres.
The new chip is reportedly being built on a base that can then be customised for clients including Meta, according to those familiar with the plans.
Production will be outsourced to a manufacturer such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, people told the FT.
Meanwhile SoftBank is also reportedly closing in on the acquisition of Ampere, an Oracle-backed chip designer of ARM-based chips for servers that could be valued at close to $6.5bn.
That deal is central to Arm’s own chipmaking project, people familiar with the plans told the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, an ARM-produced chip is also likely to eventually play a role in Sir Jony Ive’s secretive plans to build a new kind of AI-powered personal device, which is a collaboration between the iPhone designer’s firm LoveFrom, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank.
