Amazon is reportedly in discussions to invest in chipmaker Arm’s initial public offering (IPO).
Arm owner SoftBank is also talking to Google and companies from other industries heavily dependent on semiconductors in anticipation of a Nasdaq listing for Arm, the Financial Times (FT) reported Wednesday (Aug. 9).
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the world’s biggest providers of cloud computing. Amazon has begun producing its own chips based on Arm’s designs, meaning it would make sense for the company to invest and signal a strong endorsement of Arm’s push into the server market, per the report.
“Every big tech company that is an Arm customer or relies on Arm tech is being given the opportunity,” an unnamed source reportedly told the FT. “Amazon is one of them … There are about 10 [potential investors] that aren’t public.”
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment for this report. PYMNTS has contacted SoftBank and Google for comment but has not yet received a reply.
SoftBank investors believe the company seeks to list Arm with a market valuation of at least $60 billion, the report said.
However, one FT source familiar with discussions with chipmaker Nvidia — which SoftBank had reportedly sought as an investor — suggested a share price that placed Arm’s value at $35 billion to $40 billion, while Arm wanted to be valued at around $80 billion, per the report.
(Nvidia tried to buy Arm from SoftBank for $40 billion, but called off the deal last year.)
Arm’s IPO — seen as a possible bright spot in an otherwise lackluster season for public listings — is happening as advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are driving demand for chips.
To meet that demand, Nvidia introduced a superchip Tuesday (Aug. 8) that boosts capacity and speed for use in generative AI and other accelerated computing demands. The Grace Hopper Superchip is anticipated to serve as the basis of systems delivered by manufacturers starting in the second quarter of next year, the company said.
As PYMNTS reported in May, Nvidia — valued at more than $1 trillion — is “undoubtedly the biggest player,” in the AI space, with its graphics processing units (GPUs) cited in research papers 90 times more than the top AI chip startups put together.