(Reuters) -Arm Holdings plans to launch its own chip this year after securing Meta Platforms as one of its first customers, in a major shift to the chip tech provider’s model of licensing its blueprints to other companies, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, sending its U.S.-listed shares up about 5%.
This move would put Arm in direct competition with some of its largest customers, including Nvidia, which build their own chips on top of Arm’s architecture.
Arm has been somewhat exempt from the AI-linked growth spurts enjoyed by chipmakers because it makes money from AI indirectly by steadily raising licensing fees for its technology and charging royalties for each chip other companies sell.
Rene Haas, Arm CEO, will unveil the first chip that it has made in-house as early as this summer, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the company’s plans.
Arm’s chip is expected to be a central processing unit (CPU) for servers in large data centres and is built on a base which can then be customised for clients including Meta, the report said.
Production will be outsourced to a manufacturer such as TSMC, according to the report.
SoftBank and Meta did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment while Arm declined to comment.
Masayoshi Son, founder of Arm’s majority owner SoftBank, has placed Arm at the centre of his push to expand AI infrastructure, with the launch of Arm’s own chip considered a step in his larger plans to move into AI chip production, FT reported.
SoftBank is also nearing a $6.5 billion buyout of Oracle-backed chip designer Ampere, a deal considered essential to Arm’s own chipmaking project, according to the report.
(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
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