Arm Chief Pitches Chip Designer as AI Play in Buildup to IPO

Vlad Savov, Bloomberg News

Arm CEO Rene Haas gives a keynote address at the Computex electronics show in Taipei on May 29. Photographer: Vlad Savov/Bloomberg , via Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Semiconductor designer Arm Ltd. has found its calling card for the rest of the year as it builds toward a much-anticipated initial public offering: artificial intelligence.

Arm technology is enabling many AI applications already taken for granted, and it will be fundamental to building the next wave of AI innovations, Chief Executive Officer Rene Haas said in a keynote address at the Computex trade show in Taiwan on Monday.

AI has swept across the global tech industry this year, juicing stock prices and propelling Nvidia Corp. to the brink of becoming the first trillion-dollar chipmaker. Arm, in search of a lofty valuation to satisfy parent SoftBank Group Corp., is looking to present itself as another avenue for investors to tap into this vein of tech optimism.

“Given the chase for ‘AI stocks’, we think SBG may like to present Arm as an ‘AI play’, although most of its current business is based on designing and licensing semiconductor IP, particularly for mobile devices,” said Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal.

Citing examples from Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa voice assistant and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Pixel phones to smart traffic light management and robotic beehive maintenance, Haas made the argument that on-device and small-scale AI processors will all run Arm technology.

He also pointed to Nvidia’s Grace Hopper next-generation architecture for accelerating AI as another example of Arm technology in the AI supply chain. It was the one future product that Haas could talk about, the CEO said, since Nvidia had just discussed it a day prior. Haas was otherwise tight-lipped about Arm deployments to come due to his company’s quiet period ahead of an IPO.

Arm still intends to go public by the end of the year, a spokesperson confirmed Monday.