Renée J. James, CEO of Ampere, has indicated that the acquisition will allow for the continued development of their Arm-based processor roadmap.

SoftBank has announced its acquisition of chip startup Ampere for $6.5 billion, a strategic move aimed at bolstering its investments in AI infrastructure.

As part of the deal, Oracle and Carlyle Group Inc. will divest their stakes in Ampere, which has faced challenges in gaining market traction despite its innovative technology.

SoftBank's Vision Fund has resumed its investment activities, participating in multiple funding rounds this year, signaling a renewed focus on technology investments.

Looking ahead, Ampere plans to launch CPUs with up to 256 cores produced on TSMC's advanced N3 process in 2025, with additional advancements expected in 2026.

The success of AWS's Graviton chips has prompted major cloud service providers to develop their own Arm-based processors, creating significant market challenges for Ampere.

Ampere competes with industry giants like Arm and Intel's Xeon CPUs, which jeopardizes its potential market share.

Although Google initially adopted Ampere's chips in 2020, it later shifted to developing its own custom Arm-based CPUs, further limiting Ampere's deployment.

The acquisition is pending regulatory approvals and is expected to finalize in the latter half of 2025, with Ampere continuing to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Concerns have been raised about how SoftBank will manage its investments in both Arm and Ampere, given their potentially competing server CPU strategies.

This acquisition aligns with global trends, as the demand for AI capabilities is rapidly increasing across various industries, emphasizing the importance of energy-efficient designs.

SoftBank's investment reflects confidence in Arm's energy-efficient designs, which are crucial for the next generation of AI infrastructure.