Reports of widespread interest into Alphawave has shot up the company’s share value.
Chip designer Arm recently sought to acquire chip tech provider Alphawave, to secure the tech it needs to build its own artificial-intelligence (AI) processors, Reuters reported yesterday (1 April).
Sources told the publication that Alphawave, co-headquartered in Canada and the UK, has been working to position itself for a sale after Arm expressed an interest in buying the company.
However, the deal did not go through after initial discussions between the companies.
Later the same day, however, reports emerged that US-based chipmaker Qualcomm is considering making an acquisition offer to Alphawave. As per UK mergers and acquisitions laws, Qualcomm now has 28 days to announce that it has either made an offer to acquire the company or that it has not.
Reports of widespread interest into Alphawave in recent days sent the $1bn company’s shares up by nearly 45pc since 1 April.
Alphawave creates and licenses semiconductor technology, providing connectivity needs for hyperscale data centres, AI, 5G and autonomous vehicles, among others.
The company makes high-tech serialiser and deserialiser integrated chips, known as ‘SerDes’, which make data transfer faster. The tech is crucial for companies competing in the AI sector, which not only require a lot of computing power, but also require them to operate smoothly.
Arm, headquartered in the UK, is backed by the Japanese investment firm SoftBank, which owns 90pc of the company’s shares. The company does not make its own chips, nor does it hold SerDes technology.
In 2023, the company entered into a multi-year agreement with chip-maker Intel and Alphawave’s competitor in the sector, to create mobile phone chips that contain Arm’s cores along with Intel’s foundry processes.
Last year, Reuters exclusively reported that Qualcomm was exploring the possibility of acquiring portions of Intel’s design business, although interest in the deal seemed to have waned due to complexities associated with it.
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