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This is the third major AI-related move SoftBank has made this year.

SoftBank Group (OTC: SFTBY) bolstered its AI portfolio this week as the investment company acquired Santa Clara-based Ampere Computing Holdings for $6.5 billion.

Ampere, based in Santa Clara, Calif., is a semiconductor design company focused on high-performance, energy efficient, sustainable AI compute based on the Arm compute platform. Softbank also owns a majority stake in semiconductor chip maker Arm Holdings (Nasdaq: ARM), as well as stakes in other AI, smart robotics, IoT, telecommunications, internet services, and clean energy technology providers.

Once the deal is finalized later this year, Ampere will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group and retain its name. As part of the deal, Ampere’s current lead investors — Carlyle (Nasdaq: CG) and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) — will sell their respective positions in Ampere.

This is the latest big move by Tokyo-based SoftBank into AI infrastructure investments. Earlier this year, the company announced that it was part of the $500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure investment initiative, along with Oracle and Open AI. The Stargate initiative is investing in new AI data centers across the U.S.

Also, in February, SoftBank launched the Cristal Intelligence initiative with OpenAI to develop and market Advanced Enterprise AI. This project will develop the most advanced models developed by OpenAI, focusing on AI agents that are capable of reasoning and can execute tasks independently with the goal of boosting efficiency and creating new business opportunities.

Ampere will help Softbank execute these and other AI initiatives.

“The future of Artificial Super Intelligence requires breakthrough computing power,” said Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group, said. “Ampere’s expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision and deepens our commitment to AI innovation in the United States.”

SoftBank stock unmoved by deal

Ampere is a semiconductor company that designs high-performance, energy-efficient processors for next-generation cloud computing and AI workloads.

Founded in 2018 with an initial focus on cloud-native computing, Ampere has since expanded into sustainable AI compute. It is expected to collaborate with the broader SoftBank Group ecosystem, including Arm. Ampere’s expertise in developing and taping out ARM-based chips can be integrated, complementing design strengths of Arm Holdings.

“With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies,” Renee James, founder and CEO of Ampere, said.

SoftBank has been eyeing Ampere since at least 2021, when it considered buying a stake in the company. But according to Bloomberg, the company was valued at $8 billion back then, lower than the $6.5 billion price it paid now. Does that mean SoftBank got a deal? If not, what caused the valuation drop?

Ampere employs about 1,000 semiconductor engineers and its clients include Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, Tencent, and Super Micro Computer, reported Tech Crunch.

SoftBank stock, which trades on the OTC market in the U.S. and the Tokyo Stock Exchange, was mostly flat on Thursday, trading at $26 per share. It is down about 10% year-to-date.

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