Wells Fargo highlights that SoftBank Group's $2 billion investment in Intel (INTC.US) not only provides support for ARM Holdings' (ARM.US) autonomous chip development but may also bring additional foundry capacity. Wells Fargo analysts Joe Quattrochi and Travis Prin noted in their investment report: "We believe investors will view this investment as new evidence that ARM Holdings will develop autonomous AI chips, as SoftBank's investment in Intel could provide alternative foundry capacity options."

The Japanese conglomerate currently holds an 87% stake in ARM Holdings. Quattrochi added: "It's worth noting that Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and ARM Holdings announced a collaboration in 2023, aimed at helping chip designers leverage Intel's 18A process to create low-power system-on-chips—initially focusing on mobile devices, with plans to expand to automotive, IoT, and data center applications."

This investment will make SoftBank the sixth-largest shareholder of the Santa Clara-based semiconductor company, holding approximately 2% of shares. Information disclosed this Monday shows that ARM Holdings has hired Rami Sinno, head of Amazon's (AMZN.US) artificial intelligence chip business. The addition of this expert, who previously led the development of Amazon's proprietary AI chips Trainium and Inferentia (designed for building and running large-scale AI applications), signals that the British semiconductor design company is accelerating its autonomous complete chip development plans.

In July this year, ARM Holdings CEO Rene Haas revealed that the company has increased R&D investment and is evaluating the feasibility of autonomous chip manufacturing. ARM Holdings has also recruited two industry veterans: Nicolas Dube, a former Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) executive with extensive large-scale system design experience, and Steve Holt, a chip engineer who previously worked at Intel and Qualcomm (QCOM.US).

SoftBank continues to expand its layout across the entire AI industry chain. Over the past year, the group has successively acquired British AI chip manufacturer Graphcore and Ampere, a silicon design company focused on high-performance, high-efficiency AI computing based on ARM Holdings platforms. Additionally, SoftBank has become a significant investor in OpenAI.