Artificial intelligence technologies are becoming more and more common. One example of this is the AI chatbot craze that was started by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Some companies, like Huawei, are introducing their own AI models to stay competitive. Others, like Apple, are imposing restrictions on the use of generative AI. Microsoft, on the other hand, prefers to integrate ChatGPT into their systems. Based on this, we can say that the technology industry is confused about AI. However, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son seems to be more moderate when it comes to AI usage. Here are the details…

AI Chatbot Craze Continues, with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son as a Heavy User

xArtificial intelligence is a very controversial topic. Some people are comfortable using AI models like ChatGPT in their daily lives, while others are opposed to it. Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, is somewhere in the middle. He uses AI every day, but he says it’s important to be aware of the potential risks. He believes that AI can be a powerful tool for good, but it’s important to use it responsibly.

“I am chatting with ChatGPT everyday – I am a heavy user,” Son said. “I am very impressed with the technology. It is very helpful for me to get different perspectives on things.” SoftBank is a major investor in AI, and Son has long argued that AI is the driving force behind his investing activity. However, the company has also had some high-profile setbacks in the AI space

SoftBank has made some investments in AI-related companies that have not been successful. For example, SoftBank invested heavily in WeWork, an office-sharing company that was valued at $47 billion in 2019. However, WeWork’s valuation fell sharply after it was revealed that the company had serious financial problems. This led to SoftBank taking a significant loss on its investment.

It remains to be seen whether Son’s use of ChatGPT will help him to make better investment decisions in the future. However, there is no doubt that AI is playing an increasingly important role in SoftBank’s business.

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(via)

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ARM Processors are the foundations for all smartphone chipsets we see today. Whether it be a Qualcomm Snapdragon, MediaTek Dimensity, Apple Silicon or Samsung Exynos chipset, chances are that all the aforementioned silicon SoCs (system on a chip) are using ARM’s technology which includes its wildly popular ARM Cortex CPU Cores and ARM Mali GPUs.

Today, the ARM Limited tech giant has revealed the company’s earnings and profits for the fiscal year of 2021, and to the company’s investors’ delight, ARM had generated record-breaking yearly sales revenue and profits in the business throughout 2021.

In the media statement, ARM reveals that its 2021 total revenues were up by 35% when compared to 2020, totalling at 2.7 billion USD with strong growth in both royalty and non-royalty revenue streams. And as for profits, the company generated record EBITDA adjusted profits of 1 billion USD, which is up by 68% compared to 68%. Overall, the ARM company’s profit margins after adjustment is a high 37%.

Going into the specifics, ARM’s 2021 licensing (non-royalty) revenues were up 61% to 1.13 billion USD as the brand’s expanded product portfolio and new business models such as ARM Flexible Access gave more customers more reasons and more ways to license ARM technology.

As for royalty revenues, ARM’s 2021 figures were up 20% from 2020 to a record 1.54 billion USD, helped by continuing strong growth of 5G smartphones, more ADAS and IVI chips going into cars, and price increases in 32-bit microcontrollers.

In his closing remarks, Mr Rene Has, CEO of ARM said: “Our record results demonstrate that the demand for ARM technology and the strength of the ARM ecosystem has never been greater – our compute platform will power the next set of technology revolutions across cloud computing, automotive and autonomous systems, the IoT, the Metaverse and beyond.” 

“As we look ahead to a future built on ARM, our priority is to continue to deliver on our business strategy, enable partners with the solutions they need through further investment in our roadmaps and engineering talent, and together with our ecosystem redefine the future of computing,” Mr Rene added.

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(Source)

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ARM Processors are the foundations for all mobile chipsets we see today. Whether it be a Qualcomm Snapdragon, MediaTek Dimensity, Apple Silicon or Samsung Exynos chipset, chances are that all the aforementioned technologies are using ARM’s technology which includes its wildly popular ARM Cortex CPU Cores and ARM Mali GPUs.

In the early 2020s, Nvidia initially had plans to acquire the British semiconductor design company, ARM Limited, from its parent company, Softbank Group, the Japanese technology conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo for over 40 billion USD. However, Nvidia’s plan was disrupted due to rising regulatory conflicts with the US government and the acquisition was terminated in February 2022.

The aftermath of this was that Softbank now values its ARM chip-making business as more crucial to the entire tech industry. So valuable in fact, that Softbank is actually considering listing its ARM business as an entity on the US NASDAQ Stock Market to gain more funding to further develop the company.

According to Nikkei Asia, industry sources say that SoftBank wanted the NASDAQ IPO(Initial Public Offering) to take place by the end of March 2023, meaning that ARM needs to complete auditing between June and September this year, as per NASDAQ listing procedures.

However, ARM has one problem that has yet to be resolved to complete its internal organisation auditing, which is its tense relationship with ARM China, the Chinese subsidiary of ARM.

Ever since 2020, ARM has struggled to regain control of ARM China as the subsidiary’s head, Allen Wu, has refused to relinquish power despite a 7-1 board vote in June 2020 to kick him out. The spat has made it difficult for ARM to audit the financials of the company, creating a major stumbling block to an initial public offering in the US.

Because of this, ARM decided to now transfer its shares in its wayward China joint venture to a special purpose vehicle that it jointly owns with its parent SoftBank Group Corp. A partner at the U.S. law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman, Han Lijie, commented that creating a special purpose vehicle that will not be part of the offering will allow ARM to indirectly hold ARM China shares. That means it can treat ARM China as an investment rather than a subsidiary when reporting financials.

The move by ARM is seen to be clever, as it is now able to speed up its plans to go public if it decides to list in the US.

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(Via)

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South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Group has agreed to buy a controlling stake in US robot firm, Boston Dynamics from SoftBank Group Corp in a deal worth $1.1 billion.

In a statement released on Friday (via), Hyundai said the purchase would fast track its expansion plans in the automation of its vehicle assembling processes in its factories and production of autonomous cars, drones, and robots, as it pursues transformation from a carmaker to a broader mobility service provider.

Hyundai said the deal, which involves a new share issue, would give the company and its Chief Executive a combined 80% stake in Boston Dynamics, with Softbank retaining 20%.

Newly promoted Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Euisun Chung sees the future business direction of the company would be a mix of traditional car manufacturing, robotics, and urban air transportation in the ratio of 50%:20%:30%.

Chung will own a 20% stake in Boston Dynamics, while Hyundai Motor and its affiliates Hyundai Mobis and Hyundai Glovis will have a combined 60% holding in the new firm.

Softbank Group Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said the partnership with Hyundai Motor Group would accelerate the robot maker’s path to commercialization.

Boston Dynamics was an offshoot of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 and has changed hands from MIT to Google in 2013 and then to SoftBank in 2017. It chalked up a net loss of $103 million in 2020, following declines from previous years. The transaction, subject to regulatory approvals and other considerations, is expected to be concluded by mid-2021.

For Hyundai Motor Group, this is the latest move in a seemingly well-choreographed lineup of deals under Chung, who had pledged to transform the automaker into a mobility provider.

Hyundai Motor Group announced in January 2020 that it had partnered with Uber to develop electric air taxis, although it would seem the venture was not productive, as Uber said this week it plans to sell its loss-making flying taxi unit to Joby Aviation.

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A new report has suggested that Japanese network operators, SoftBank and KDDI are planning on investing a total of 38 billion US Dollars for 5G networking in the country over the course of the next 10 years.

According to an ITHome report, the move from the Japanese carriers arrives as they plan on catching up to other developed nations that are currently racing to adopt the newer and faster generation of networking. 5G network requires a large sum of capital investment and it is expected that its applications will be spread across various industries, and not simply limited to mobile networking. This would also effectively boost the country’s economy as well.

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SoftBank recently planned on investing 2 trillion yen (roughly 19 billion US Dollars) to build 5G networking in the region. This would have the company build over 350,000 base stations within the next 10 years. At the moment, SoftBank is the first Japanese telecommunications company to announce its long term network development strategy but others are expected to soon unveil their own plans as well.

The company will be placing a focus on the commercial aspect of 5G, or in other words, push towards the consumer market. Its 5G network will support low latency and large data transmission. Furthermore, it is also hoping that its 5G base stations will promote further development of data intensive applications within other fields like IoT (Internet of Things), medicine, and even autonomous vehicles.

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NVIDIA will be buying Arm Holdings from the SoftBank Group as per a recent announcement. The known graphics card maker will be acquiring the chip designer for a deal worth 40 billion US Dollars, which was announced by both companies on Sunday (13th September 2020).

The deal will have NVIDIA paying 12 billion US Dollars in cash, which includes 2 billion US Dollars payable at signing, and giving out 21.5 billion US Dollars worth of NVIDIA’s stock to SoftBank. For those unaware, SoftBank acquired Arm back in 2016 for 31.4 billion US Dollars. Arm is a known chip designer with its architecture being one of the most popular designs used in most smartphone chips from companies like Qualcomm, Apple, and even certain Intel chips.

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NVIDIA stated that it will “continue Arm’s open-licensing model and customer neutrality.” SoftBank had initially acquired the chip designer for the internet of things based applications in terms of connectivity. However, with the group’s finances falling in recent years, the company had to sell Arm Holdings. Recently, SoftBank had lost investment in companies like WeWork and Uber, which caused its share values to fall as well.

On the other hand, NVIDIA is looking forward to a boom in the industry, especially with its upcoming RTX 3000 series graphics card that was recently announced. With the coronavirus pandemic, the PC market saw a surge that even boosted the PC gaming market. The company is currently projecting a 46 percent growth in revenue for the third quarter, as per its recent financial report.

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The SoftBank Group is apparently also eyeing to bid on TikTok‘s assets in India. According to a report from the Economic Times, the group is looking into assembling a group of bidders and has also been actively looking for local partners as well.

Sources close to the matter revealed the information regarding the Japanese conglomerate’s interest. Notably, SoftBank already has a stake in TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd. Reportedly, the group has also been in talks with Indian telecom giants like Reliance Jio, and Bharti Airtel, according to industry insiders. It seems that SoftBank is still exploring options.

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At the moment, SoftBank, Bytedance, Reliance, and Bharti Airtel have declined to comment on the matter. For those unaware, TikTok is considering selling its operations in multiple countries after governments like India and the US have placed a ban on the app. The ban arrived after it was claimed that sensitive user data was being sent to the Chinese government. In India, the anti Chinese sentiment has been growing in recent times due to military clashes along the Indo-China borders.

Similarly, in the US, the Trump administration banned the TikTok app and ordered the company to sell its assets within the country, citing national security concerns. While SoftBank only holds a minor stake in ByteDance, it has been actively participating in negotiations. The Japanese group had initially brought in Walmart as the main investor in a group of bidders in the US. Although that failed due to the US Government insisting on a tech company leading the investments. So, we will have to wait a while and see how the situation plays out.

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SoftBank is apparently considering options regarding the known chip designer Arm Holding, which it owns. The company might be offering Arm in either a full or partial sale and maybe even a public offering.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, SoftBank is in talks with Goldman Sachs Group, who is acting as an advisor. Furthermore, these options that SoftBank has considered is still in the early stages. At the moment, however, it is unknown as to whether or not financial or industry players would have an interest in Arm. Thus, it is quite likely that SoftBank would not make any of the aforementioned moves.

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Notably, Apple, the Cupertino based tech giant, has licensed technology from Arm Holdings for its A series of chips used in its mobile devices since 2006. The known smartphone maker has also recently announced that it would start making its own chips for its Macs that will be equipped with Apple Silicon which utilizes Arm architecture. Although possible, it is still unlikely that Apple would be interested in a partial or even a full purchase of Arm Holdings.

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(Via,Source)

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Arm has just announced that it is planning to spin off two of its IoT businesses. Earlier today, the known chip designer said that it would be transferring these divisions to SoftBank Group, who had also acquired Arm back in 2016.

With the announcement, Arm also mentioned that it would be focusing on its core business, which is its semiconductor IP business. The firm is a known chip designer and its architecture has been used by various different companies. Furthermore, the transfer of these two businesses is currently pending additional review from the company’s board, although, this process is expected to be completed before the end of September.

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The move from Arm will have it see its way out of the IoT Platform and Treasure Data businesses, but, the company said that it would continue to cooperate with the ISG (IoT Services Group) businesses. In other words, Arm will retain its business on the compute IP aspect of the IoT, while the data software and services aspects will be handled by the two divisions individually.

According to ARM CEO, Simon Segars, “Arm believes there are great opportunities in the symbiotic growth of data and compute. SoftBank’s experience in managing fast-growing, early-stage businesses would enable ISG to maximize its value in capturing the data opportunity. Arm would be in a stronger position to innovate in our core IP roadmap and provide our partners with greater support to capture the expanding opportunities for compute solutions across a range of markets.”

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(Via)

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A recent report from the Japanese media through Reference news network (RNW) disclosed that Softbank Group (SBG), a domestic communications subsidiary of Softbank Group (SBG), was listed on the main board of the Tokyo Stock Exchange on December 19. In a press conference held for the listing, Softbank’s president Miyazaki Miyazaki spoke on a number of issues bordering on the company’s plans. He spoke on the cost of the replacement of the Huawei Base Station technology which would amount up to 100 billion Yen.

The media has been awash with news that the Japanese government plans to remove Huawei-manufactured communication equipment around the country just as the US is doing. But Softbank president thinks that is a costly venture especially considering its wide usage in the country. He, however, stated that that company will henceforth make sure it obeys all the guidelines laid down by the Japanese government. He further stated that the replacement of the Huawei base station technology may cost tens of billions of yen in a year, nevertheless in a severe case, the cost could rise up to 100 billion yen in a year. Softbank’s vice-president, Myagwa also stated in the report that Huawei base stations that is in use in the field of 4G in the country need to be substituted.

Read Also: T-Mobile and Sprint merger deal approval reportedly hinged on ditching Huawei’s technology

Recall that Softbank-owned US carrier Sprint recently merged with T-Mobile but that deal is reportedly hinged on both company’s ditching the use of Huawei’s technology in their home countries.

(source)

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The long-awaited proposed merger between U.S. carriers T-Mobile and Sprint may finally obtain regulatory authorization as early as the coming week. The government regulatory bodies involved with authorizing the merger, agree that it can move forward, this is according to a new report from Reuters. However, the approval might hinge on an unexpected requirement: that Deutsche Telekom AG (T-Mobile’s parent company) and SoftBank Group Corp (Sprint’s parent company) fail to use Huawei equipment in their respective worldwide networks.

According to Reuters, both parent companies reported that they are “considering” complying to the requirement to get the deal to go through. At the moment, neither Sprint or T-Mobile use Huawei network equipment in the United States. Nevertheless, both SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom use Huawei equipment for their networks respectively everywhere in the world. The approval of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger would make both companies to slowly phase out Huawei equipment currently in use and refuse to buy Huawei equipment going forward.

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The source for this Reuters report says that Deutsche Telekom has been pressured by U.S. government officials in particular, to stop using Huawei equipment, mentioning security concerns related to Huawei’s alleged ties to the Chinese government. Huawei has repeatedly stated that these security concerns are invalid. However, several countries — including the U.S., Australia, and Japan has refused to use Huawei equipment for all or some of its networking purposes. If the T-Mobile-Sprint merger approval becomes successful, it would cut the “Big Four” carriers down to the “Big Three,” with the other remaining U.S. carriers being AT&T and Verizon. The combined T-Mobile-Sprint company would simply be called T-Mobile.

(source)

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It is no news that Qualcomm’s next flagship for 2019 will be called the Snapdragon 855. We also know that its next modem is called the Snapdragon X50. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Mobile Platforms have integrated modems but come next year, the SDM855 with an integrated SDX50 modem will go by a new name.

Thanks to a SoftBank Earnings Result document, it has been revealed that Qualcomm will refer to the chipset that contains the SDM855 application processor and the SDX50 5G modem as the Snapdragon 855 Fusion Platform.

We don’t know why Qualcomm is changing the name from Mobile Platform to Fusion Platform but one explanation is that Snapdragon processors are moving away from being just for mobile devices (phones and tablets) but also PCs.

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Both the SDM855 application processor and the SDX50 5G modem are going to be built using 7nm chips. They are both expected to show up in devices next year.

(Source, Via)

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Andy Rubin, the co-creator Android who is known as ”the father of Android” was rumored to launch his own high-end flagship smartphone as early as the oncoming spring to take on the likes of iPhone and Google Pixel smartphones. Fresh reports reveal that the Japan-based SoftBank that was supposed to fund the launch of Rubin’s smartphone has decided not to invest $100 million in Essential Products Inc, a startup company led by Rubin.

Rubin was supposed to launch his smartphone through Essential Products Inc, a new firm consisting of around 40 people that were previous employees of Google, Apple, or Samsung. SoftBank and Essential were reportedly working on the final stages of the contract, but the financing firm has decided to scrap the deal. Citing unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal has reported that it was because of a conflict in interest that made SoftBank decide to not to provide funds to Essential.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has plans to launch a tech-based investment group called vision Fund later this year with $100 billion in capital. Apple will be investing $1 billion in this fund. Son apparently felt that investing in Essential for Rubin’s smartphone could disturb SoftBank’s relationship with Apple.

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SoftBank had acquired ARM chipmaker in September. The ARM-based processers are used in devices manufactured by Samsung, LG and other companies. Investing in a probable competitor like Essential could lead to restrained relationship with partnering companies. This is also considered to be another reason why SoftBank has withdrawn its investment decision on Essential.

Another report has revealed that Essential would be getting $100 million from unnamed investors instead of SoftBank. Essential is likely to close this deal soon which could possibly help Rubin to launch his smartphone by spring.

Rubin’s smartphone is expected to sport a 5.5-inch pressure-sensitive bezel-less display. It also speculated to carry support for modular accessories like the Moto Mods available for Moto Z series smartphones.

The smartphone was allegedly spotted with Essential FIH-PM1 moniker on Geekbench benchmarks with specs like Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4 GB of RAM and Android 7.0 Nougat OS. In single-core test, it recorded a score of 1,844 whereas it scored 5,426 on multi-core test. Speculations indicate that it is being assembled by Foxconn International Holdings (FIH) which can be seen in the moniker that appeared on Geekbench.

(Source)

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SoftBank is a Japanese multinational telecommunications and internet corporation with interests in several companies including US carrier, Sprint. As of 2015, the company was the 62nd largest company in the world. That position will be changing as they plan to acquire British company, ARM Holdings, whose primary business is the design of ARM processors.

These processors or their designs are found in a ton of devices ranging from smartphones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, and cars’ ABS.

The acquisition is supposed to be in the tune of $32bn. The announcement raised the company’s shares by 45% at the London Stock Exchange adding $10bn to ARM’s market value.

ARM whose headquarters is in Cambridge is the 3rd chip maker in the city to be acquired. Last year, Qualcomm bought chipmaker CSR, and before that, HP also acquired Autonomy.

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Some folks have said the acquisition is as a result of the recent weakness of the Pounds Sterling but SoftBank says the deal was already being planned before the Brexit vote.

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While some folks might say Windows mobile isn’t doing very well, it seems some manufacturers still have faith in the OS. One such manufacturer is PC and mobile manufacturing giant, Lenovo.

Lenovo, in a joint partnership with Japanese carrier, SoftBank, has announced the SoftBank 503LV which will hit the Japanese market by late October.

The SoftBank sports mid-range specs such as a 5” HD screen, 3GB of RAM, a snapdragon 617 processor and 32GB of built-in storage. The phone is equipped with an 8MP rear camera, a 5MP front facing camera for selfies, and is powered by a 2250mAh battery.

The phone weighs 144g and has a 7.6mm thickness. There is no word on pricing yet, but we’ll update this article once we get our hands on that.

Is there a chance we might see this phone outside of Japan, probably under a different Lenovo name? Maybe, maybe not.

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