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The deal is part of a strategy at SoftBank to broaden its AI infrastructure.
Japan’s SoftBank Group has announced that it will acquire California-based silicon design company Ampere Computing in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.5bn.
Once the acquisition closes, Ampere will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group and retain its name and headquarters in Santa Clara, while the agreement sees Ampere’s lead investors, Carlyle and Oracle sell their positions in Ampere.
The deal is part of a strategy at SoftBank Ventures to broaden its AI infrastructure. Back in February, SoftBank announced a partnership with OpenAI to develop and market advanced enterprise AI called ‘Cristal intelligence’.
It said Cristal intelligence would securely integrate the systems and data of individual enterprises in a way that is customised specifically for each company. SoftBank Group said it would spend $3bn annually to deploy OpenAI’s solutions across its group companies, making it the first company in the world to integrate Cristal intelligence at scale.
SoftBank Group is also a key equity investor in the Stargate Project, a new company which announced in January it would invest $500bn over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the US. Along with SoftBank, the other initial equity investors are OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX, but SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners.
Arm, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners.
“The future of artificial super intelligence requires breakthrough computing power,” said Masayoshi Son, who is chair and CEO of SoftBank Group as well as chair of the new Stargate Project. “Ampere’s expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision, and deepens our commitment to AI innovation in the United States.”
“With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies,” said Renée J James, founder and CEO of Ampere.
Ampere was originally founded in Silicon Valley in 2018 with a focus on cloud-native computing, but has since expanded into what it describes as “sustainable AI compute”.
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