Known for its bold investments, SoftBank is making another major move—this time doubling down on the future of AI infrastructure. The tech investment giant announced it will acquire Ampere Computing, a Silicon Valley-based chip designer, in a $6.2 billion all-cash deal.
Ampere, founded in 2017 by former Intel President Renee James, specializes in high-performance AI chips built on Arm architecture. Once the deal closes, the company will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group, giving SoftBank even deeper roots in the semiconductor industry.
The acquisition signals SoftBank’s growing focus on the AI hardware stack. Ampere, which previously raised $814 million from backers like Oracle and Carlyle, is known for designing data center chips optimized for AI workloads—a sector experiencing explosive demand.
For SoftBank, the deal feels like a natural fit. The company knows the Arm ecosystem well, having famously acquired Arm Holdings in 2016 for $32 billion. That bet paid off handsomely when Arm went public in 2023 and now boasts a $124 billion market cap.
By bringing Ampere into the fold, SoftBank strengthens its positioning across the AI hardware landscape, right as the race to power large-scale AI models heats up.
The Ampere acquisition is part of a broader push by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to dominate AI infrastructure. The company highlighted other recent initiatives, including its partnership with OpenAI to develop advanced enterprise AI solutions.
SoftBank is also spearheading The Stargate Project, a multi-company venture planning to spend $500 billion over four years to build out AI data centers and infrastructure. Masayoshi Son is set to chair the project, underscoring SoftBank’s deep commitment to the AI arms race.
Meanwhile, SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which once took Silicon Valley by storm with outsized startup bets, is ramping up activity again. After a quiet period, the fund has participated in eight deals so far this year, according to Crunchbase.
In recent weeks, Vision Fund has led two sizable investments:
- $130 million Series C for solar technology startup Terabase Energy
- $120 million late-stage round for cybersecurity firm Cybereason
The fund also joined a $215 million Series B for Metsera, a clinical-stage biopharma startup, and a $150 million Series F for India’s Eruditus Executive Education.
Perhaps most notably, Vision Fund made a strategic investment in cloud security unicorn Wiz last November. If Google’s proposed $32 billion acquisition of Wiz goes through, it could turn into one of Vision Fund’s most lucrative exits in years.
With the Ampere deal, SoftBank is signaling that it’s not just betting on AI software — it’s investing heavily in the foundational hardware powering the next generation of AI applications.
By adding Ampere’s Arm-based AI chips to its portfolio, SoftBank is positioning itself at the heart of the data center and AI compute boom—a market expected to see massive growth as generative AI adoption accelerates worldwide.
As Masayoshi Son doubles down on AI, SoftBank’s latest moves suggest it sees infrastructure dominance as the next frontier in tech investing.
