BUSINESS-ECONOMY
The SoftBank Group, based in Japan, has acquired artificial intelligence chip maker Graphcore for an undisclosed amount, putting an end to the speculations over the future of the company. The SoftBank Group, based in Japan, has acquired artificial intelligence chip maker Graphcore for an undisclosed amount, putting an end to the speculations over the future of the company. Graphcore was, at one time, modulated as a rival to Nvidia but failed to raise the needed investment to remain competitive in the burgeoning AI chip market. By the end of 2020, Graphcore was valued at $2.77 billion, a filing published last year showed that a further fundraising round was needed in order to break even. It had cut staff by 20 per cent to 494 and pulled its operations in Norway, Japan, and South Korea. At Thursday's media briefing, co-founder and CEO Nigel Toon said the SoftBank acquisition would give Graphcore the scale to contest the global market. On the same platform, he also admitted to the recent troubled past the company went through. "The piece that surprised us was the speed at which this has taken off, and the scale that is involved," Toon said. "This is a level of investment that is utterly massive. Graphcore, as a modestly-sized company compared to those we're competing with, has actually managed to go toe-to-toe and build world-class technology." Toon will stay at the helm but refused to mention the price at which it was acquired. He also reflected on the broader British technology industry, citing the long-term aversion of British pension funds to fast-growing startups as an obstacle to success. "There's a massive opportunity here, but there's a lot of structural things that still need to be fixed," he said. "If you look at where our money came from, some of it came from the UK, but the majority of it came from other regions. That's the reality of it, and that's the piece that we're going to need to fix, going forward." Asked if Graphcore would work with Arm Holdings—a subsidiary of SoftBank—Toon said it would collaborate with partners across SoftBank's portfolio. The acquisition of Graphcore by SoftBank underlines the ongoing consolidation in the AI chip sector, more importantly, placing AI technology at the centre of the global market. This, therefore, would provide Graphcore with much-needed impetus to innovate and grow so that it stands in a better position against giants like Nvidia. None
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