{"id":64646,"date":"2024-07-12T08:03:08","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T08:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/07\/12\/pioneering-british-ai-chip-designer-bought-by-japanese-firm\/"},"modified":"2024-07-12T08:03:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T08:03:08","slug":"pioneering-british-ai-chip-designer-bought-by-japanese-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/pioneering-british-ai-chip-designer-bought-by-japanese-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Pioneering British AI chip designer bought by Japanese firm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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British artificial intelligence (AI) chip firm Graphcore \u2013 once considered a potential rival to market leader Nvidia \u2013 has been bought by a Japanese conglomerate.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Softbank has not disclosed how much it paid \u2013 but it is thought to be considerably less than the \u00a32bn the UK company was valued at after a financing round in 2020.<\/p>\n

Graphcore head Nigel Toon told the BBC it was \u201ca tremendous endorsement of our team\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, the deal is likely to raise questions about the UK\u2019s ability to develop firms which can take on the biggest players in the booming AI chip market.<\/p>\n

It is not the first time Softbank has acquired a promising UK start-up \u2013 in 2016 it controversially acquired another British chip designer, Arm.<\/p>\n

Ben Barringer, technology analyst at Quilter Cheviot, said it was \u201canother bitter blow\u201d to UK financial markets to see Graphcore follow suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes at a time when London is looking for a blockbuster tech listing to reinvigorate its reputation as a global financial centre,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Science Secretary Peter Kyle called the deal a \u201cwelcome end to the uncertainty that has faced Graphcore and its employees\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he also admitted it was a \u201creminder of the important work that needs to be done\u201d to make the UK \u201cthe best place to start and grow a business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Toon said he believed the deal showed UK firms could compete with big tech, claiming Graphcore went \u201ctoe to toe with the largest companies in this space with a much smaller team with much less capital\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really positive for the UK, bringing new investment here to help drive the growth agenda which as we all heard recently is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he would stay on as head of the company, and the move would lead to Graphcore hiring new staff in its UK offices.<\/p>\n

The firm will now be a subsidiary under SoftBank but will remain headquartered in Bristol.<\/p>\n

Drop in value<\/p>\n

Though the sale price has not been made public, it has been reported that it is $500m (\u00a3390m).<\/p>\n

Mr Toon said he would not \u201cgo into any of the speculation\u201d around the sums of money involved.<\/p>\n

But he did concede that the valuation of tech firms in general \u201chave been up and down\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve certainly seen a lot of other companies, their values have dropped and investors have taken appropriate cautious decisions about how they value investments on their books.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, as a result of this deal, we\u2019ll see big investment and huge progress for Graphcore together with SoftBank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graphcore was founded in 2016 by Mr Troon and Simon Knowles \u2013 its computer chips, the Colossus series, allow for powerful computer processing.<\/p>\n

However it has struggled with slowing sales since its bumper 2020 valuation, and announced in 2022 that it had closed offices in Norway, Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n

Then in 2023, major tech investor Sequoia Capital said it had entirely written off the value of its stake in the company.<\/p>\n

That was a major disappointment considering, at one point, Graphcore was seen as a potential competitor to Nvidia in the AI space.<\/p>\n

Its would-be rival has grown significantly in value and briefly this year held the title of the most valuable company in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is actually good news for UK tech and Graphcore,\u201d said Dan Ridsdale, head of technology at Edison Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cNvidia has carved out a dominant position in Generative AI\u2026 but there are other opportunities within AI and the industry will need viable competitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Graphcore will need substantial capital \u2013 it is a positive that Graphcore has found an investor willing to take the risk and provide the capital to put it in the mix.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The post Pioneering British AI chip designer bought by Japanese firm<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British artificial intelligence (AI) chip firm Graphcore \u2013 once considered a potential rival to market leader Nvidia \u2013 has been bought by a Japanese conglomerate. Softbank has not disclosed how much it paid \u2013 but it is thought to be considerably less than the \u00a32bn the UK company was valued at after a financing round […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}