SoftBank buys struggling UK AI chipmaker Graphcore

Japan's SoftBank, which owns CPU designer Arm, has acquired UK chip house Graphcore for an unspecified sum. Graphcore announced the deal on Thursday in a brief statement penned by CEO Nigel Toon, who said the takeover represents "a tremendous endorsement of our team and their ability to build truly transformative AI …

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do the classy girls always leave me for rich guys?

"ARM broke my heart in a letter,

Told me she was leaving, and her life would be better.

Pi broke it off over the phone,

After the tone she left me alone.

DeepMind said she'd never ever see me again

When I saw her again, she said it again

Graphcore Brown just took the bus out of town...

Looks like no one is sticking around"

I don't blame them for taking the money and running. It is the same I have done. But Mother England, my heart cries for you.

[Korev]

This is good news I guess.

What I can't work out is why if the chips are so good, the UK government bought their large machines with Nvidia GPUs...

[pimppetgaeghsr]

Because it isn't that good, and if it is, by the time you can use it your competitors on CUDA have reached scale.

[Charlie Clark]

I suspect this will turn out to be, like many of the private to private sales, essentially a book-keeping exercise. Someone gets to book a profit and show what a good investor they are, and Son shows his more patient saps investors that he's back in the game. Sale or write-off within three years.

[pimppetgaeghsr]

Hearing reports employees will get nothing for their shares. I hope saying "AI" can pay rents in Bristol and Cambridge or you will have a very demotivated workforce on your hands.

[Ken Hagan]

No you won't. They'll be hugely motivated (to get a new job) and in Cambridge and Bristol there's a good chance they'll find one.

SoftBank are presumably aware of this and will presumably be laying on sufficient incentives to stay. Otherwise their investment will be worth nothing in a year's time.

[pimppetgaeghsr]

I think that horse has bolted given their attrition since the big names started writing down their investment. Still no job openings on their website.