SoftBank to acquire US chip designer Ampere in $6.5B deal
Carlyle Group and Oracle will sell their stakes in Ampere, which will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and keep its headquarters in Santa Clara, California.
SoftBank Group is acquiring Silicon Valley start-up Ampere Computing for USD 6.5 billion as the Japanese conglomerate continues its push to boost its AI portfolio.
The deal, an all-cash transaction, is expected to close in the second half of 2025.
According to the agreement, Carlyle Group and Oracle will sell their stakes in Ampere, which will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank and keep its headquarters in Santa Clara, California.
In 2021, SoftBank considered acquiring a minority stake in Ampere, which was then valued at USD 8 billion.
“The future of artificial super intelligence requires breakthrough computing power,” SoftBank Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said. “Ampere’s expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision, and deepens our commitment to AI innovation in the US.”
SoftBank recently announced a partnership with OpenAI to create enterprise level AI. The Japanese giant has also shown its commitment to AI through its involvement in Stargate, US President Donald Trump’s USD 500 billion private AI investment project.
“With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies,” said Renee James, Founder and CEO of Ampere. “This is a fantastic outcome for our team, and we are excited to drive forward our AmpereOne roadmap for high performance Arm processors and AI.”
James, who founded Ampere in 2017, previously worked at Intel and private equity firm Carlyle besides serving on the board of Oracle.
Softbank acquired British chip designer Arm in 2016 for USD 32 billion. Ampere makes data center CPU chips based on a computing architecture from Arm Holdings.
