Japan's SoftBank acquires British AI chip designer Graphcore

Japan's SoftBank Group Corp has acquired British chip designer Graphcore, which will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of SoftBank, but will continue to operate under the Graphcore name.

“This is a tremendous endorsement of our team and their ability to build truly transformative AI technologies at scale, as well as a great outcome for our company,” said Graphcore co-founder and CEO Nigel Toon. “Demand for AI compute is vast and continues to grow. There remains much to do to improve efficiency, resilience, and computational power to unlock the full potential of AI. In SoftBank, we have a partner that can enable the Graphcore team to redefine the landscape for AI technology.”

“Society is embracing the opportunities offered by foundation models, generative AI applications and new approaches to scientific discovery,” said Vikas J. Parekh, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “Next-generation semiconductors and compute systems are essential in the AGI journey, we’re pleased to collaborate with Graphcore in this mission.”