Report: Chip Designer Arm Plans to Become Chip Manufacturer

Chip designer Arm reportedly plans to become a chip manufacturer.

Arm, which has traditionally designed chips and licensed those designs to companies like Apple and Nvidia, plans to introduce the first chip it made in-house as soon as this summer, the Financial Times (FT) reported Thursday (Feb. 13).

One of the SoftBank-owned company’s first customers for its new chip is Meta, according to the report.

Reached by PYMNTS, Arm declined to comment on the report.

Meta did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

By building and selling its own complete chip, Arm could become a competitor of some of its biggest customers, the FT report said.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son aims to build an infrastructure network for artificial intelligence (AI), and Arm is at the center of those plans, according to the report.

Arm is a key technology partner of Stargate, the AI infrastructure initiative led by SoftBank and OpenAI, the report said.

Arm’s new chip is expected to be a central processing unit (CPU) for use in data centers, to be customizable for clients, and to be manufactured by a company to which Arm will outsource the work, per the report.

When asked by PYMNTS in January about rumors that Arm is interested in becoming a chip manufacturer, Arm Chief Commercial Officer Will Abbey declined to comment. Reuters reported in May that the company planned to develop its own AI chips in 2025, with a prototype ready by spring.

As a chip designer, Arm has a near-total monopoly in mobile devices and is eyeing opportunities in AI.

Abbey told PYMNTS in January that Arm sees its power-efficient design as a competitive advantage, especially since AI is an infamous power guzzler.

Arm uses a CPU architecture that is different from and not compatible with the x86 architecture used by most of the world’s computers, servers and data centers, PYMNTS reported in January.

Arm’s CPU architecture is simpler, customizable and energy efficient, enabling it to garner a 99% market share in mobile devices because it’s better for battery-powered gadgets. In contrast, x86 is meant for higher-performance computing.

Several tech giants have adopted custom Arm-based chips.