SoftBank to Buy Chip Designer Ampere From Carlyle, Oracle For $6.5 Billion

01:04 PM EDT, 03/20/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Japan's SoftBank is buying chip design company Ampere Computing from Carlyle Group ( CG ) and Oracle (ORCL) for $6.5 billion, expanding its artificial intelligence investments in the US.

Carlyle has a nearly 60% stake in Ampere, while Oracle owns about 32% of the company that makes chips based on a computing architecture from SoftBank's majority-owned Arm Holdings ( ARM ) . Arm has an 8.08% stake in Ampere.

Ampere's chips are specialized for next-generation cloud computing and AI workloads. The company has about 1,000 highly skilled chip engineers.

"The future of artificial super intelligence requires breakthrough computing power," SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said in a statement dated Thursday. "Ampere's expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision, and deepens our commitment to AI innovation in the (US)."

Earlier this year, SoftBank was named as one of the initial equity funders alongside Chatgpt's OpenAI, Oracle and MGX in Stargate, which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure in the US. More recently, SoftBank announced a partnership with OpenAI to develop advanced enterprise AI.

Carlyle and Oracle did not respond to emailed requests for comment by MT Newswires. Carlyle posted the joint SoftBank-Ampere announcement on its website on Wednesday.

"With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies," Ampere CEO Renee James said in the statement. "This is a fantastic outcome for our team."

SoftBank expects the deal to close in the second half of 2025, pending regulatory approvals.

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