Apple intends to make an investment in the UK-based chip designing firm Arm, as Softbank Group, the current owner, prepares to offer its shares through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq exchange in September, according to a new report from Nikkei Asia.
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According to the report, Arm is estimated to be worth $60 billion through its IPO, which would make it the biggest public offering this year so far. SoftBank is expected to apply to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to officially seek Arm’s listing by the end of August, before securing final approval from Nasdaq. Apple, alongside other leading chip providers, is expected to heavily invest in Arm if the deal goes through, including Samsung, Nvidia, and Intel.
The public offering of Arm’s shares could commence between mid and late September, adds the report. SoftBank is still evaluating potential investors’ demand for Arm, with the former hoping to increase the latter’s valuation beyond the $60 billion mark. According to the report, Arm hopes to sell a stake worth a few percentage points to Apple and other big chipmakers as “medium to long-term shareholders” in a bid to maintain its stock price immediately after its IPO. Apple could leverage its holding stock in Arm to influence certain technical decisions within the chip designer in a bid to dictate the future of Apple silicon.
Despite being relatively unknown by many, Arm is perhaps one of the most influential intellectual property holders in the semiconductor architecture industry. Arm pioneered the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture design for modern low-energy processors.
Apple licenses Arm’s instruction set for its own chip designs, which enabled the former to break free from Intel with its Apple silicon transition in 2021. All A-series processors for iPhone and iPad also rely on Arm’s underlying instruction set, although Apple now possesses great engineering talent to customize and tailor its chips to its exact specifications.