SoftBank to acquire semiconductor designer Ampere in $6.5B all-cash deal

SoftBank Group announced on Wednesday that it will acquire Ampere Computing, a chip designer founded by former Intel executive Renee James, through a $6.5 billion all-cash deal as a strategic move to broaden its investment in AI infrastructure. Ampere will be operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of SoftBank after the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2025. Carlyle and Oracle, Ampere’s lead investors, will sell their shares in the Santa Clara, California startup. According to SoftBank’s statement, Carlyle holds a 59.65% stake while Oracle holds 32.27%. The startup employs 1,000 semiconductor engineers. In 2021, SoftBank considered acquiring a minority stake in Ampere, which was then valued at $8 billion, per Bloomberg. SoftBank is the largest shareholder of Arm Holdings, and Ampere has developed a server chip based on the ARM compute platform, positioning the two companies are strong partners. (Softbank acquired a British chip designer Arm for $32 billion in 201 ... Read full article.