Items tagged with softbank
NVIDIA surprised no one last night when it announced that it would acquire Arm for $40 billion from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. In fact, the only odd thing about the announcement, perhaps, was that it was peculiarly announced on a Sunday night. Given how Arm processors touch nearly every facet of our digital lives and that the company has many big-name licensees, many are understandably worried what impact this could have on the computing industry. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang tried to reassure critics yesterday by confirming that the company will “continue to operate its open-licensing model while maintaining the global customer neutrality that has been foundational to its success.”...
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After months of rumors and a report yesterday that said that a deal was imminent, NVIDIA announced today that it plans to acquire Arm in a massive deal valued at $40 billion, in what is the largest deal in semiconductor industry history. The two companies have reached a “definitive agreement” in which SoftBank will also take a 10 percent ownership stake in NVIDIA. The transaction represents an big shakeup in the tech industry with NVIDIA now wielding influence over the Arm microarchitecture that has shaped and powers nearly every aspect of modern electronics, from smartphones (there are over 1 billion smartphones sold globally each year), to televisions, to smart...
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We first heard back in late July that NVIDIA was looking to flex its growing clout in the chipmaking industry by potentially acquiring Arm Holdings from SoftBank. At the moment, NVIDIA is the most valuable U.S. chipmaker with a market cap of just over $300 billion, compared to $209 billion for the previous long-time leader, Intel. Although we’ve heard plenty of additional rumors since the initial story broke — along with recent opposition from two of Arm’s co-founders — a new report from the Wall Street Journal states that SoftBank is “nearing a deal” that would see NVIDIA purchase Arm for around $40 billion. SoftBank, which purchased...
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Multiple reports suggest NVIDIA is the front runner to acquire Arm Holding, should parent company SoftBank ultimately decided to sell it, in whole or in part. And at a glance, it appears to be a savvy play by NVIDIA, one that could disrupt the technology industry in a major way. But might it also be savvy for another reason? Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser has weighed in on the matter and has an interesting perspective. Rather than leverage Arm's extensive intellectual property (IP) portfolio, Hauser suggests NVIDIA could be looking to buy the company so it can bury it. "They are the semiconductor company that can buy Arm to destroy it—and it is very much in its interest to destroy Arm because...
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For the last few weeks, there have been numerous rumors swirling that claimed NVIDIA was seriously considering acquiring Arm, which is wholly owned by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Softbank acquired Arm back in 2016 in a deal worth about $31B, but a new report claims NVIDIA may take ownership by the end of summer. Regular readers of HotHardware know that Arm’s instruction set and CPU and GPU core technologies are leveraged by virtually all of the largest chip makers in the world. AMD, Intel, Apple Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Samsung, Broadcom all use Arm cores in one form or another, and the list goes on and on. If you’ve got a smartphone in your pocket, odds are the SoC...
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In case there was any doubt that Arm could be switching hands in the near future, its parent company, SoftBank, confirmed it is shopping the semiconductor outfit around and is in talks with a specific bidder. While not mentioned by name, it has been widely reported that NVIDIA has interest in acquiring ARM, despite inevitable regulatory hurdles. A sale to NVIDIA or any other company is still not a foregone conclusion. SoftBank has options, and it is considering all of them. Should there not be a satisfying offer, SoftBank could retain Arm and take it public again. It could also sell a stake or multiple stakes in Arm, rather than offload the company outright to a single buyer, NVIDIA or otherwise....
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Last week we reported that NVIDIA was keenly interested in purchasing Arm Holdings in an effort to bolster its growing chip ambitions. Softbank acquired Arm back in 2016 for $31.4 billion, but recently has been looking for a buyer to take the company off its hands as it looks to pay down its debt. A new report from Bloomberg alleges that NVIDIA and Softbank are getting even closer to an acquisition deal for Arm. In fact, sources for the publication allege that a deal could be reached “in the next few weeks”. Further solidifying NVIDIA’s chances at securing a deal for Arm, it’s being reported that NVIDIA is the only company currently in any...
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If rumors are accurate, or if where there is smoke there is usually fire, we could be soon witnessing a major shakeup in the chip industry. Multiple mainstream business press outlets are reporting this evening that NVIDIA is making a serious run at Arm, which is owned by Japanese mega-corporate holding company, SoftBank. As you might recall from earlier this month, rumors were swirling that SoftBank was looking to offload Arm, which it purchased back in 2016 for $31.4 billion in cash. Arm chip architecture designs and IP are employed across multiple industries, including numerous gadgets and hardware products that consumers take for granted. From your smartwatch to your smartphone, to your tablet...
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When we think of Boston Dynamics, we think of a company that is bringing us even closer to Skynet. The company produces robots that are capable of incredible feats that make them move and function more like a human (in the case of Atlas) or like a dog (with SpotMini). The company is cranking it up another notch with the latest iterations of these two robots. With Atlas, the humanoid robot is becoming more fluid in its motions and is seen taking a casual jog outside with strides that more closely mimic that of a human. Atlas is seen running on flat land and even up a slight incline. Impressively, it is also shown jumping over a log and landing solidly with both feet. Remember, this is...
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It looks though the third time was a charm for T-Mobile and Sprint. After two previous attempts at tying the knot, T-Mobile and Sprint today officially announced that they have agreed to merge in an effort to create a powerhouse wireless company delivering 5G internet the masses. The move is no doubt an attempt to better compete with Verizon Wireless and AT&T, America's first- and second-place wireless carriers respectively. T-Mobile is currently a distant third place when it comes to wireless subscribers, while Sprint sits in fourth place. The combined company will be called T-Mobile, and it will be led by the T-Mobile's current executive team to spread more Un-carrier goodness....
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It's been an incredibly busy few months for Qualcomm, and it appears that the action isn't going to be slowing down anytime soon. In the past week, the US government took a weight off of Qualcomm's shoulders by putting a stop to the Broadcom deal, all in the name of national security. This happened at the same time news of potential Intel interest rose to the surface. With Qualcomm effectively safe from Broadcom, all is well... right? Not so fast. It's clear that with Intel's interest, Qualcomm is a much hotter target than previously anticipated, and for that reason, former CEO (and son of company founder) Paul Jacobs has decided he'd like to take the company private. Being either a public or...
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Reports are going around that Softbank is intending to list the mobile phone unit SoftBank Corp. in Tokyo and abroad this year. Any potential public offering would be a massive money generator with some estimating that it could bring in 2 trillion yen, which is about $18 billion. SoftBank has the potential to be one of the largest ever IPOs for a Japanese company. SoftBank reportedly intended to apply to the Tokyo Stock Exchange as early as this Spring and to begin trading this fall. While the company starts trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the company also hopes to list stock overseas, possibly in London, at the same time. Reports indicate that SoftBank Group plans to sell about 30% of outstanding...
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We have seen Boston Dynamics robots pull off some pretty wild stunts over the years, from fetching beer, to walking up stairs, to being brutally assaulted by its human handlers and taking it in stride. However, this latest achievement by a Boston Dynamics Atlas robot simply left our mouths agape. The video starts off impressively enough, with the nearly 6-foot tall Atlas robot jumping onto a short platform, and then from one platform to another. It then jumps down again, only to jump up onto a platform roughly 3-ft tall (give or take a few inches) but the last platform is taller, almost twice as tall. What happens next is nothing short of amazing. Just watch the video... Your eyes do not...
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SoftBank has made yet another notable purchase in the land of tech, this time for Boston Dynamics, an engineering and robotics design company that has built some eerily lifelike robots. Google's parent company Alphabet had been shopping the robotics firm for more than a year after acquiring the company in 2013 and has now found a buyer. Boston Dynamics gained notoriety on the Internet by posting videos of its various robots, including Atlas, a human-like contraption that stands 5-feet 9-inches tall and weighs 180 pounds. Armed with sensors in its body, legs to balance, and both LIDAR and stereo sensors in its head to avoid obstacles, Atlas is able to assess the terrain and move around like an...
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NVIDIA has been firing on all cylinders over the past year or so and has seen impressive growth in nearly all of its divisions, including gaming GPUs and its efforts in deep learning and artificial intelligence, two of the hottest fields in technology right now. The GPU maker's success has drawn the attention of SoftBank, a multinational telecommunications and Internet corporation in Japan, which just made a big time investment in NVIDIA.How big are we talking about? Try $4 billion, which gives SoftBank a 4.9 percent stake in NVIDIA. SoftBank is now the fourth-largest shareholder in the graphics chipmaker. While it is a massive investment, that amount is just a smidgen less than what would otherwise...
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It’s been a whirlwind week in the wireless industry. Verizon disturbed the hornet’s nest when it unveiled its Verizon Unlimited plan, which prompted direct responses from T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T (in that order). Now were hearing about another shakeup that could be coming down the line — a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile. We’ve heard talks about such a mashup before, but it appears that the big change this time around is that Sprint’s parent company, Japan's SoftBank, is willing to cede control of the company. The merger would bring together America’s third-place (T-Mobile) and fourth-place (Sprint) wireless carriers, putting the combined company in a better position to take on Verizon...
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If you currently are in possession of a smartphone (and who isn’t these days), there’s probably close to a 99 percent chance that it’s running on a processor that was originally designed by ARM Holdings. ARM doesn’t actually build the chips that you find in smartphones like Apple’s iPhone 6s or Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge; but it does license its processor designs and related IP directly and allows licensees to create their own custom processors using ARM instruction set compatible architectures. A big shakeup is about to happen at ARM, because Japanese powerhouse SoftBank has offered to purchase the British multinational tech company for around $31.4 billion in cash. This lofty price tag represents...
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It's a good thing for Sony that its PlayStation 4 console is such a success, because in the land of mobile, especially smartphones, sales aren't anywhere as easy to come by. That's true of most companies not named Apple or Samsung, though it's particularly disappointing for Sony, one of the better known brands in electronics. Sony's strategy to turn things around in the smartphone business is to team up with Sprint and its Japan-based parent company SoftBank. For the first time, Sprint will add a Sony brand smartphone to its catalog of devices. That smartphone is expected to be the Xperia Z3, Sony's next flagship handset, which will likely launch at next week's IFA tech expo in Berlin. The goal...
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Much to T-Mobile's chagrin, Sprint is no longer interested in acquiring the nation's fourth largest wireless carrier, and the decision to ditch any potential deal the two may have been negotiating could spark a price war. That's just fine by Sprint, which is testing out new pricing plans as it prepares itself for what could be a fierce fight in wireless. Masayoshi Son, CEO of Sprint's parent firm SoftBank Corp, said his company will infuse the nation's third largest wireless carrier with its "street fighter" tactics through new leadership. Indeed, Sprint already hired a new CEO of its own, replacing former chief Dan Hesse with Marcelo Claure, founder and CEO of wireless distribution company Brightstar....
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We as a society are still coming to terms with folks wearing Google Glass on their face, and eventually, we're going to have to come to grips with robots such as this walking around in parks and shopping malls. The Japanese-born robot, named Pepper, is set to go on sale early next year in Japan for just under $2,000. As of now, plans to ship it outside of Japan are still up in the air, likely due to cultural uncertainties on how nations would react to such a cutie showing up on store shelves. The robot is described as a "cooing, gesturing humanoid on wheels," which has a special talent: it can comprehend emotions and make people smile. The unit itself is 48" tall, weighs 62 pounds, has no hair,...
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Back in December, we caught wind that Japan’s Softbank was looking to snag T-Mobile, and now that deal is closer to becoming reality, according to new reports. Deutsche Telekom AG currently owns a majority stake in T-Mobile, but it’s apparently willing to sell that majority to Softbank while keeping a minority stake for itself. The news was originally leaked by Kyoto News Agency, but Reuter’s sources confirmed it while noting that there have been complications, not the least of which is overcoming regulatory concerns in the U.S. Softbank/Sprint's Son (Credit: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg) The issue here is primarily is that Softbank also owns most of Sprint, and if it acquires...
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Sprint is forging ahead with plans to bid for a takeover of T-Mobile, according to a new report. Sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that Sprint has lined up financing with at least six banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Deutsche Bank AG. It’s unclear how much capital will be needed, as the deal would require covering T-Mobile’s $8.7 billion in debt. Whatever the number, Softbank (which owns 80% of Sprint) and Deutsche Telekom AG (which owns 67% of T-Mobile) are talking. Part of those discussions center on who would helm the newly-merged company, and the report...
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