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SoftBank's Arm Plans to Launch AI Chips Next Year Amid Huge Global Demand

SoftBank’s Arm Plans to Launch AI Chips Next Year Amid Huge Global Demand

Arm, the chip designer owned by SoftBank Group, is gearing up to enter the artificial intelligence chip market with plans to launch its own AI chips by next year. The move comes amidst a heated competition in the AI chip sector, as companies race to dominate this rapidly growing market.

Setting Up an AI Chip Unit

According to a recent report by Nikkei Asia, Arm, which has a 90% stake owned by SoftBank, is in the process of establishing an AI chip unit. This unit is tasked with developing a prototype AI chip, expected to be ready by the spring of 2025. The intention is to initiate mass production by the fall of the same year.

Partnerships and Investments

SoftBank's Arm Plans to Launch AI Chips Next Year Amid Huge Global Demand

Image Source: en.amwalalghad.com

Arm is engaging in discussions with prominent contract manufacturers, including Taiwan’s TSMC, to facilitate the production of these AI chips. The initial investment for developing these chips is projected to be substantial, potentially reaching hundreds of billions of yen. However, Arm intends to absorb these development costs, highlighting the strategic importance of this venture for both Arm and SoftBank.

Strategic Moves and Future Plans

Arm’s foray into the AI chip market underscores SoftBank’s strategic focus on artificial intelligence. Masayoshi Son, the Japanese billionaire leading SoftBank, has expressed a strong commitment to AI investments. This includes a planned investment of $960 million by next year to enhance computing facilities for generative AI.

Moreover, SoftBank envisions a broader presence in the AI landscape. It aims to establish AI data centers powered by its proprietary chips across key regions like the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East by 2026. This ambitious plan signals SoftBank’s determination to be at the forefront of the AI revolution.

Market Response and Financial Outlook

Arm’s announcement has already resonated positively in the market, with its shares rising by nearly 45% this year. As of current data, Arm’s market capitalization exceeds $113 billion, a testament to investor confidence in its strategic direction.

SoftBank is scheduled to report its fiscal year earnings on Monday, providing further insights into its financial health and strategic initiatives. The upcoming launch of Arm’s AI chips and SoftBank’s continued investments in AI infrastructure are poised to shape the future landscape of the tech industry, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence.

ARMv9

Intel’s market competitor Arm introduces Armv9 with major architectural updates in a long time.

After a very long time, Arm has introduced a major update unveiling the biggest technical overhaul with Armv9. With this new chip, Arm is all set to give a very tough market competition to Intel which is the world’s biggest chipmaker. With Armv9 the company has implemented major modifications to the chips, the first being Artificial Intelligence (AI). The AI revolution is a major breakthrough of this century unleashing new potential for every industry. And, Arm has designed the new chip to handle the capabilities of machine learning (ML) for security and other purposes.

Major Upgrades by ARM

Every day millions of devices are
getting connected with the help of the internet and Arm is trying to enhance
the computing abilities with its products. With the help of advanced
architectural chips powered by AI, many devices are exploring new capabilities.
The AI software helps greatly many industries to be very dynamic and provide
real-time solutions and updates. With the launch of Armv9, the company has said
that the upgrades are needed
to support the spread of computing beyond phones, PCs, and servers. Arm wants
the presence of its technology everywhere and that it becomes the next big
solution for the tech industry.

Simon Segars, CEO of Arm, said that “As we look toward a future that will be defined by AI, we must lay a foundation of leading-edge compute that will be ready to address the unique challenges to come.” He further explained that Armv9 is the next computing answer for the industries trying to harness the power of AI and at the same time keeping the security in check. The company’s next 300 billion Arm-based chips will be driven by extremely powerful design and security.

Source: arm.com

Arm’s technology and processor designs are currently dominant in the smartphone industry but the company is gradually trying to expand in PCs and server fields as well. Currently, it sells its designs and licenses an instruction set to Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm.

The New Armv9 Architecture

As
the number of chips designed and shipped by Arm increases every year, very soon
100 percent of the world’s shared data will be processed on Arm. With the
increasing demand for Arm’s chip, the responsibility of the company increases
as well to enhance the capabilities for improved performance and better
security. According to the company, these are two main priorities of Armv9 and
that it will accelerate to provide more specific computing for AI, Internet of
Things (IoT), and 5G gain momentum.

ARMv9
Image Source: bbc.com

Enhanced security

To tackle the security problem that is increasing in the tech world much rapidly, Arm is introducing the Arm Confidential Compute Architecture (CCA). This feature will help shield portions of code and data from access or modification while in-use, even from privileged software, by performing the computation in a hardware-based secure environment.

Henry Sanders, corporate vice president and chief technology officer, Azure Edge and Platforms at Microsoft said that “The increasing complexity of use cases from edge to cloud cannot be addressed with a one-size-fits-all solution.” Due to this reason heterogeneous computing is becoming more versatile and hence in demand among hardware and software developers.

Source: arm.com

Arm has made this possible in collaboration with Microsoft thus establishing a synergy between hardware and software. Arm has the capability of powering billions of devices and connecting them in a heterogeneous computing ecosystem.

Better performance through system design

Arm’s chip design has always increased the CPU performance and Armv9 will continue to do so. Arm says that the Armv9 generation will increase the CPU performance by 30 percent over the next two generations of mobile and infrastructure CPUs. So, Arm’s Total Compute Design methodology will accelerate overall compute performance through focused system-level hardware and software optimizations and an increase in use-case performance (Arm.com).

The
new Armv9 design will give a tough competition to Intel as many companies are
slowly inclining towards Arm’s processors.