Japan's SoftBank Group has acquired artificial intelligence chipmaker Graphcore, as per Reuters. However, the amount of the acquisition has not been disclosed.
Graphore faced hardships in securing investments. The company, once considered the rival of Nvidia, faced wide losses. In February, there were reports that the British firm was exploring a sale amid tough market competition.
During a media interaction, Nigel Toon, cofounder and CEO of Graphore, said that the company would be able to have adequate resources and compete at the global level with the deal by SoftBank.
Toon reportedly said, “The piece that surprised us was the speed at which this has taken off and the scale that is involved.”
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He further added, “This is a level of investment that is utterly massive. Graphcore, as a modestly-sized company compared to those we're competing with, has actually managed to go toe-to-toe and build world-class technology.”
Toon will continue to stay in the same role after the acquisition. Toon highlighted that one of the reasons for the company's failure was the lack of interest from the British Pension Fund to invest in growing start-ups. He added, “There's a massive opportunity here, but there's a lot of structural things that still need to be fixed.”
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Last year, the company mentioned that they were closing their offices in Japan, North Korea, and Norway due to a lack of funds. Similarly, the company had to reduce its employee count from 631 in 2021 to 494 by the end of 2022, as per a report by Bloomberg. Graphore's loss widened 11 percent to $204.6 million, as per Reuters.
Graphore was once one of the most promising start-ups, raising $222 million at a valuation of $2.77 billion in 2020. Founded in 2016, Graphore is a “British semiconductor company that develops accelerators for AI and machine learning.”
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