SoftBank's Arm is developing its own chips, targeting Meta as one of its first customers, leading to a surge in stock prices

SoftBank's Arm is accelerating its significant transformation from a traditional licensing model to independent chip design and manufacturing. The latest news on Thursday indicates that Arm is developing its own chips and has locked in Meta as one of its first customers.

According to the Financial Times, Arm plans to launch its first self-developed chip this year, expected to debut as early as summer. The new chip will serve as a central processing unit (CPU) platform for large data center servers, based on customizable designs that can meet the specific needs of multiple clients, including Meta, with production potentially outsourced to professional manufacturers like Taiwan Semiconductor.

For a long time, Arm has been known as the "Switzerland of chip technology," a reputation stemming from its neutral stance when dealing with competing chip manufacturers. Arm's business model primarily relies on licensing instruction set technology and complex core designs to clients (including Apple, Google, NVIDIA, Amazon, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Intel), enabling these companies to produce chips independently.

However, with increasing market competition and explosive growth in artificial intelligence (AI) demand, Arm is seeking higher technological added value and revenue sources. Since taking office in 2022, Arm CEO Rene Haas has been pushing the company to transition from relying on intellectual property licensing to pursuing higher royalty revenues, and now further incorporates independent chips into its business landscape.

Arm's move not only signifies a profound transformation of its business model but may also reshape the power balance in the $700 billion semiconductor industry. Arm's transformation represents a bold step from merely providing basic components to producing complete processor systems. This shift could lead to direct competition with former partners like NVIDIA and Qualcomm, and may even trigger a rebalancing of existing customer relationships.

Meanwhile, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has positioned Arm at the core of building a vast AI infrastructure network. Previously, he announced in the "Interstellar Gateway" plan that he intends to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure in collaboration with partners like OpenAI, with Arm being one of the key technology partners in this initiative.

Additionally, SoftBank is actively seeking to acquire Ampere, a design company focused on server chips based on Arm architecture, supported by Oracle, with the deal valued at nearly $6.5 billion, which is strategically significant for Arm's chip manufacturing plans.

Following this news, Arm's stock price surged by 5%, and the increase expanded to over 6% at closing. Since the beginning of 2025, its stock has risen by more than 33%, reflecting investors' high recognition of the company's core position in the AI systems field.

Industry insiders point out that with Google planning to invest $75 billion, Microsoft $80 billion, and Meta $60 billion in capital expenditures for data centers, the opportunities facing Arm are unprecedented. Senior executives at Arm emphasized during the earnings call, "No one is retreating," indicating that global tech giants are increasing their investments in AI technology and infrastructure Arm's designs have been applied in over 300 billion chips, including the vast majority of smartphones worldwide. Its energy-efficient CPU designs are gradually becoming a strong alternative to Intel chips in the PC and server markets. In the future, Arm will not only continue to make strides in traditional areas but may also play a key role in emerging fields, including AI personal devices secretly prepared by Apple's designer Jony Ive