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 2016, and it became publicly traded in 2023.) Ampere’s customers include Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, and Tencent, as well as companies like HPE and Supermicro.

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 “Cristal intelligence.” SoftBank has also invested in the AI infrastructure project Stargate, which is building data centers for OpenAI across the U.S., and purchased an old Sharp factory in Japan.

“The future of Artificial Super Intelligence requires breakthrough computing power,” said Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. “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.”

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.

“With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies,” said James. “This is a fantastic outcome for our team, and we are excited to drive forward our AmpereOne roadmap for high-performance Arm processors and AI.”