Softbank is reportedly in talks with Ampere Computing about potential acquisitions.NewsLater, SoftbankconfirmAfter acquiring Ampere Computing for US$65 billion, Ampere Computing will become a subsidiary of Softbank and maintain independent operation, with its headquarters still in Santa Clara, California, USA. Ampere Computing founder Renée James will continue to serve as CEO.
Ampere Computing was founded by former Intel President Renee James. Its main business is to build server processors based on the Arm architecture. However, it later announced a new independent architecture processor brand AmpereOne to break away from its heavy reliance on the Arm architecture development. In mid-May 2023, it announced the launch of an independent architecture processor with up to 5 computing cores designed for cloud native. Subsequently, it also cooperated deeply with Qualcomm to use the new data center processor to reduce the artificial intelligence market's dependence on GPUs.
Ampere Computing's market valuation in 2021 was $80 billion, but its current valuation has been reduced to $65 billion due to its debt, allowing Softbank to acquire it at the same price. Following the acquisition, Softbank will transfer its stake in Ampere Computing, previously held by US private equity firm Carlyle Group and Oracle.
Following its integration into the SoftBank Group, it's not hard to predict that Ampere Computing will deepen its collaboration with Arm and accelerate the development of Arm-based datacenters. However, it remains unclear whether this will impact other companies already utilizing or planning to utilize the Arm architecture in datacenter-grade processor development.
