July 12, 2024 — Graphcore has confirmed that the Japan-based SoftBank investment firm has acquired the specialty AI chip company. Terms were not disclosed, but news reports estimate the acquisition at roughly $600 million.
Graphcore has struggled in recent years, according to a Reuters report, the company was valued at $2.8 billion in 2020, but “a filing published last year revealed Graphcore needed more cash to break even, after cutting its headcount by a fifth to 494 employees, and shutting down operations in Norway, Japan, and South Korea.”
At a briefing yesterday with news media, Graphcore CEO Nigel Toon said the deal will infuse the company with finances that will allow Graphcore to compete on a worldwide level.
Toon will reportedly retail his role at the company.
UK-based Graphcore is based in Bristol and was founded in 2016. The company develops accelerators for AI and machine learning and has engineered a massively parallel Intelligence Processing Unit designed to hold the complete machine learning model inside the processor.
The company reported revenues of $2.7 million in 2022.
