British AI chipmaker startup Graphcore acquired by SoftBank
UK chip company Graphcore has been acquired by Japan’s SoftBank. Under the agreement, Graphcore has become a fully owned subsidiary of SoftBank, and will continue its operations under the Graphcore name.
Graphcore, founded in 2016, is a semiconductor startup headquartered in Bristol, UK. The company focuses on creating a new kind of processor, known as an ‘intelligence processing unit’ (IPU), tailored for AI and machine learning tasks. IPUs enhancing performance to meet AI's high computational demands, distinguishing it from conventional CPUs and GPUs.
Since its inception, the startup had raised around $700 million, with big-name investors supporting it, such as Microsoft and Sequoia, and high-profile angels such as Demis Hassabis of DeepMind, and Greg Brockman of OpenAI.
The industry had high hopes that Graphcore would be an AI beacon in the UK and Europe, however, AI hardware is a resource and fund intensive industry and Graphcore struggled to commercialise the technology. The challenge of commercialising cutting-edge hardware is not uncommon in the tech industry, and Graphcore was no exception. Its most recent financial records for 2022 highlighted this struggle, showing sales of $2.7 million against a backdrop of $205 million in pre-tax losses.
“This is a tremendous endorsement of our team and their ability to build truly transformative AI technologies at scale, as well as a great outcome for our company,” said Graphcore Co-Founder and CEO Nigel Toon. “Demand for AI compute is vast and continues to grow. There remains much to do to improve efficiency, resilience, and computational power to unlock the full potential of AI. In SoftBank, we have a partner that can enable the Graphcore team to redefine the landscape for AI technology.”
“Society is embracing the opportunities offered by foundation models, generative AI applications and new approaches to scientific discovery”, said Vikas J. Parekh, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “Next generation semi-conductors and compute systems are essential in the AGI journey, we’re pleased to collaborate with Graphcore in this mission.”
With SoftBank's backing, Graphcore is poised to continue its mission of advancing AI hardware. The company’s focus on developing specialised processors for AI and ML remains its core strength. As AI technology continues to evolve and permeate various sectors, the demand for efficient and powerful processing units will only grow. Graphcore's IPU, with its unique architecture, positions the company to capitalise on this expanding market.
