In what would be a major overhaul to the company’s business model – which involves licensing its chip IP to customers such as Apple and Nvidia – Arm is on course to unveil its first in-house chip in the summer.
Owned by SoftBank, Arm has seen over 300bn chips based on its designs shipped since the company was founded in 1990. In fact, almost all the world’s smartphones are based on Arm technology.
The company’ decision to move from designing chips to making its own complete processor is not without risks, as it will have to go head-to-head with some of its biggest customers in the £500bn semiconductor industry.
According to the Financial Times SoftBank believes it can make more money from its own IP by moving into AI chip production and building a vast infrastructure network for artificial intelligence.
SoftBank is heavily involved in the Stargate initiative with OpenAI, and Arm will be a key technology partner alongside companies like Microsoft and Nvidia.
Arm’s new chip is expected to target servers in large datacentres and will be customisable for clients like Meta, which has become the latest big tech company to turn to Arm for its server chips instead of Intel and AMD.
How Arm’s existing customers will respond to this move will be interesting and could determine whether this decision delivers what SoftBank is hoping – a stronger revenue stream.
