SoftBank in talks to buy AI chip designer Graphcore
Japanese investment entity SoftBank Group is planning to acquire Graphcore, a UK-based designer of AI chips, say news reports.
On the surface, Graphcore is an intriguing acquisition target. The Bristol-based company offers a novel chip architecture called the intelligence processing unit (IPU), which competes with Nvidia's data centre GPUs. The firm has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from investors like Sequoia Capital, Microsoft, Dell and Samsung.
But for all its promise, Graphcore has struggled to gain market share. Its 2022 revenue declined 46% to just USD 2.7 million. Meanwhile Nvidia went on to become one of world’s most valuable companies.
Neither SoftBank nor Graphcore commented on the story, which was reported by Bloomberg earlier this week. SoftBank formerly owned British chip designer Arm and is rumoured to be raising up to USDC 100 billion to fund an AI chip venture that competes with Nvidia.
