SoftBank completes purchase of AI chip designer Graphcore
Japanese investment entity SoftBank Group has finalised its acquisition of Graphcore, a UK-based designer of AI chips.
Bristol-headquartered Graphcore was formed in 2012, and now offers a novel chip architecture called the intelligence processing unit (IPU), which competes with Nvidia's data centre GPUs. It has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from investors like Sequoia Capital, Microsoft, Dell and Samsung.
Rumours emerged in May about a buy out by Softbank, and now the deal is official. Graphcore now becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank but will continue to operate under the Graphcore name.
“This is a tremendous endorsement of our team and their ability to build truly transformative AI technologies at scale, as well as a great outcome for our company,” said Graphcore co-founder and CEO Nigel Toon in a press release. “Demand for AI compute is vast and continues to grow. There remains much to do to improve efficiency, resilience, and computational power to unlock the full potential of AI. In SoftBank, we have a partner that can enable the Graphcore team to redefine the landscape for AI technology.”
“Society is embracing the opportunities offered by foundation models, generative AI applications and new approaches to scientific discovery”, said Vikas J. Parekh, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “Next generation semi-conductors and compute systems are essential in the AGI journey, we’re pleased to collaborate with Graphcore in this mission.”
Graphcore’s headquarters will remain in Bristol, and the firm will retain offices in Cambridge, London, Gdansk and Hsinchu.
