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SoftBank Group announced<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Carlyle and Oracle, Ampere\u2019s lead investors, will sell their shares in the Santa Clara, California startup. According to SoftBank\u2019s statement<\/a>, Carlyle holds a 59.65% stake while Oracle holds 32.27%. The startup employs 1,000 semiconductor engineers<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2021, SoftBank considered acquiring a minority stake in Ampere, which was then valued at $8 billion, per Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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 2016<\/a>, and it became publicly traded in 2023<\/a>.) Ampere\u2019s customers include<\/a> Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, and Tencent, as well as companies like HPE and Supermicro.<\/p>\n SoftBank stated the Ampere acquisition will bolster its capabilities in key areas like AI and compute and expedite its growth initiatives. The most recent acquisition announcement follows a string of deals made by the Japanese tech mogul over the past few months, including its partnership with OpenAI to develop Advanced Enterprise AI called \u201cCristal intelligence.\u201d<\/a> SoftBank has also invested in the AI infrastructure project<\/a> Stargate<\/a>, which is building data centers for OpenAI across the U.S., and purchased an old Sharp factory in Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe future of Artificial Super Intelligence requires breakthrough computing power,\u201d said Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. \u201cAmpere\u2019s expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision and deepens our commitment to AI innovation in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n Ampere was founded in 2017 by James, who previously worked at Intel and private equity firm Carlyle and served on the board of Oracle. The company initially specialized in cloud-native computing but has since expanded its scope to include sustainable AI compute.<\/p>\n \u201cWith a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies,\u201d said James. \u201cThis is a fantastic outcome for our team, and we are excited to drive forward our AmpereOne roadmap for high-performance Arm processors and AI.\u201d<\/p>\n