The acquisition will make Graphcore, headquartered in Bristol, UK, a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed as Graphcore is privately held.
Founded in 2016, Graphcore is one of several startups targeting the lucrative AI market and has secured funding from several tech giants, including Microsoft and Dell.
Graphcore’s product line includes Bow, an IPU specifically designed to handle AI workloads. Graphcore has claimed its solutions are competitive with Nvidia GPUs, but it has struggled for some time, with layoffs and the closure of its China office.
“This acquisition is a tremendous endorsement of our team and our ability to build truly transformative AI technologies at scale and deliverables,” Nigel Toon, Graphcore co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
This acquisition is also seen as a significant turning point for SoftBank, which was trying to get out of the CPU business and sell Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion. After the deal to sell Arm to Nvidia fell through, SoftBank listed Arm in September last year, and Arm’s stock price has risen 185%, proving its profitability.
Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, said SoftBank now appears to be getting into the chip business, and it could be a success. “Graphcore was one of the first AI startups to take a unique approach to AI accelerators. Unfortunately, it hasn’t kept up with the pace of progress in this space and hasn’t been able to provide a significant advantage over Nvidia,” Krewell said.
“But with the SoftBank acquisition, Graphcore has the opportunity to build a new design based on the learnings from previous designs,” Krewell added. “SoftBank also has a team of experienced engineers. Perhaps SoftBank sees an opportunity for Graphcore to work with Arm on a new AI architecture.”
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Source: www.itworld.co.kr
