IP licensing and CPU company Arm announced Tuesday that it will be developing its own AI chips, as per an official press release.
The update comes amid a swell in demand for more compute and newer versions of CPUs and infrastructure that can power enterprise-level and agentic AI applications.
Tech companies and chipmakers are now trying to figure out how they can stuff as much compute as they can into each chip. For instance, SK Hynix, Tesla, and SpaceX are actively working to build production lines of their own.
Arm AGI CPU expected to help firms save on energy costs
Dubbed the Arm AGI CPU, the new device is expected to provide twice the performance of an x86 CPU and give an estimated $10 billion in capex savings for each gigawatt of data center capacity–a crucial feature as hyperscalers now look to gain as much inference and compute from each unit of energy.
The announcement marks an expansion of Arm’s core business model—which was to build CPUs for smartphones, PCs, wearables, autonomous machinery, cloud systems, and architectures—into data centers that require high levels of compute.
Prior to this, Arm would provide licensing rights for companies that want to make semiconductors of their own, making this the first time they’ll be producing their own chips.
Arm’s list of IP licensing partnerships for its chips and CPUs
- AWS
- Broadcom
- Marvell
- Micron
- Microsoft Azure
- NVIDIA
- Samsung
- Apple
- TSMC
- Meta
“With the expansion into delivering production silicon with our Arm AGI CPU, we are giving partners more choices all built on Arm’s foundation of high-performance, power-efficient computing, to support agentic AI infrastructure at global scale,” said Arm CEO Rene Haas.
Founded in 1990, Arm was initially known for its Advanced Risc Machines. Earlier versions of its CPUs were embedded in desktop computers, while later iterations were fitted into smartphones and PCs. This made it a competitor in the CPU market with Intel, IBM, and NVIDIA.
In 2016, Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group acquired Arm for a total of $32 billion in an all-cash deal, making him the chairman of the company. Arm has remained private ever since, with SoftBank Group now owning 87.1% of the company.