SoftBank Group has announced it will acquire Ampere Computing, a Santa Clara-based silicon design company, in a $6.5 billion all-cash transaction. Ampere will become a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank while retaining its name. As part of the agreement, Carlyle and Oracle will fully divest their equity stakes in Ampere.
The move strengthens SoftBank’s broader AI infrastructure strategy, complementing investments in ventures such as Cristal intelligence and Stargate. Ampere, founded in 2018 by former Intel president Renée J. James, specializes in Arm-based processors optimized for cloud-native and AI workloads. The acquisition will bolster SoftBank’s efforts to accelerate AI development and enhance its data center capabilities globally.
• SoftBank to acquire Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion in cash.
• Carlyle and Oracle to fully exit their investments in Ampere.
• Ampere to continue operations as a SoftBank subsidiary with its Santa Clara HQ.
• AmpereOne processor family features up to 192 custom Arm cores for AI and cloud.
• SoftBank expands AI infrastructure strategy with the Stargate data center platform.
• SoftBank supports White House-led initiatives for U.S.-based AI and semiconductor infrastructure.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval and other standard closing conditions and is expected to be finalized in the second half of 2025. Ampere will continue operating from its headquarters in Santa Clara, CA, and will advance its AmpereOne roadmap focused on custom Arm-based processors for AI, edge, and cloud data centers.
Addendum
- Ampere was established in Silicon Valley in 2018 under the leadership of Renée J. James, who previously served as president of Intel and brings decades of semiconductor and cloud computing expertise. Ampere has received major backing from Carlyle Group and Oracle, helping the company establish a presence in the Arm server processor market. Ampere’s current products include the Ampere Altra and Ampere Altra Max, which deliver high core counts and power efficiency for cloud and AI workloads. Its latest innovation, the AmpereOne processor family, features up to 192 custom Arm cores and is optimized for hyperscale cloud providers, AI inference, and scalable edge applications. Future iterations of AmpereOne will expand on AI acceleration and memory bandwidth to meet growing demand for next-generation AI workloads.
- The company hit a major milestone in 2020 with the launch of the Ampere Altra, an 80-core processor built on TSMC’s N7 process, designed for hyperscale computing. This was followed by the Ampere Altra Max, a 128-core processor released in 2021, targeting cloud providers with its high core density and power efficiency. Both processors utilized semi-custom Arm Neoverse N1 cores with Ampere’s optimizations, eschewing simultaneous multithreading for predictable performance. In March 2020, a partnership with Oracle paved the way for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to deploy Ampere Altra-based instances in 2021.
- In 2021, Ampere deepened its industry ties. A partnership with Microsoft in May brought Ampere processors to Azure, and the July acquisition of OnSpecta, an AI technology startup, boosted AI inference performance on Ampere-based systems by fourfold. The following year, 2022, saw Google Cloud introduce T2A instances using Ampere Altra, while Microsoft rolled out Ampere-based Azure instances in August.
- Earlier this year, SoftBank revealed its Stargate project—an advanced AI data center platform designed to power Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) systems. Stargate will underpin SoftBank’s AI ambitions by integrating large-scale compute, storage, and networking infrastructure across its global operations. SoftBank also committed to supporting the White House’s efforts to enhance U.S.-based AI and semiconductor infrastructure. As part of this initiative, SoftBank plans to deploy data centers in the U.S. with a focus on sustainable operations and advanced AI-ready silicon, signaling a long-term commitment to bolstering AI leadership within the U.S. and globally.
“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.”