Arm Holdings, is aiming to roll 100 billion Arm devices out in 2025. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to establish Arm as a key player in the rapidly expanding AI chip market, projected to grow from $30 billion in 2024 to over $200 billion by 2032.

To achieve this, Arm will establish a dedicated AI chip division. The division aims to produce prototypes by spring 2025 and begin mass production by the fall of the same year. The manufacturing will be managed by contract manufacturers, including potential collaborations with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC) and others. The development costs for these AI chips are expected to reach hundreds of billions of yen, with financial backing from Arm and contributions from SoftBank.

Strategically, there is a possibility that the AI chip business could be spun off and integrated under SoftBank once mass production is underway. This move aligns with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s vision of transforming SoftBank into an AI powerhouse. Son has earmarked a $64 billion investment to drive innovations across various sectors, including data centers, robotics, and power generation. He envisions integrating AI, semiconductor, and robotics technologies to revolutionize industries such as shipping, pharmaceuticals, finance, manufacturing, and logistics.

At the Computex forum in Taipei, Arm highlighted their target of having 100 billion Arm devices worldwide by the end of 2025, emphasizing the role of AI-ready devices. Furthermore, Arm unveiled new AI chip designs and software tools aimed at enhancing AI capabilities in smartphones. These new designs are expected to improve compute and graphics performance by over 30% and accelerate AI inference by 59% for machine learning and computer vision tasks.

Arm’s strategy includes providing ready-for-manufacturing blueprints, a departure from their previous approach of offering abstract designs. This shift aims to expedite the development process for their partners, such as Samsung and TSMC. Samsung is already collaborating with Arm on 3nm process technology to meet the growing demand for generative AI in mobile devices. TSMC is working with Arm to enhance AI performance and efficiency through their Open Innovation Platform ecosystem

With these initiatives, Arm is not positioning itself as a competitor but as an enabler, helping its customers bring AI-driven chips and devices to market more swiftly. Chris Bergey, Arm’s General Manager, expressed the company’s vision of combining a platform for tightly coupled accelerators with customer Neural Processing Units (NPUs) to foster the rapid development of powerful AI chips and devices.

As Arm moves forward with its plans, it aims to capture a significant share of the burgeoning AI chip market, capitalizing on the unmet demand currently dominated by Nvidia. The company’s focus on AI chip development is a pivotal step in SoftBank’s broader strategy to lead the AI revolution and transform various industries through cutting-edge technology.

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