What’s cooking at Arm after the recent, emboldening surge in its market capitalization? On the one hand, the company has unveiled two initiatives aimed at taking center stage in the emerging chiplet-based market and ecosystem. On the other hand, Masayoshi Son – CEO of SoftBank Group, the Japanese holding company that owns a 90% stake in Arm – is reportedly looking to raise up to $100 billion for a chip venture that will rival Nvidia, with a potential help from Middle Eastern investors. Should this be confirmed, some questions would arise. Why would SoftBank challenge Nvidia? After all, the surge in Arm’s market capitalization seems to be an effect of the role played by Arm CPUs in Nvidia-based AI solutions. Does SoftBank feel that the pervasiveness of Arm CPUs is an advantage position enabling it to pursue additional AI opportunities, besides Nvidia? Will Arm continue to be a pure-play, neutral IP provider, if SoftBank gets involved in a “chip venture”? As for the Middle Eastern potential investors, the report does not mention any country names, but if it were Saudi Arabia or the UAE then SoftBank would be knocking on the same doors as OpenAI’s Sam Altman – who is also reportedly hoping to raise money from investors in that geography, for his gigantic semiconductor plan. Should those investors actually agree on satisfying all these requests, the role of Middle East in semiconductor funding would become an additional geopolitical factor to consider in the context of the current “chip war”. And now, let’s move to the news.
SoftBank reportedly planning a “chip venture”
SoftBank Group’s CEO Masayoshi Son is reportedly looking to raise up to $100 billion for a chip venture that will rival Nvidia. According to the report, the project – code named Izanagi – will supply semiconductors essential for artificial intelligence. SoftBank would inject $30 billion in the project, with an additional $70 billion potentially coming from Middle Eastern institutions.
