Softbank Group Corp’s chip technology firm Arm Ltd’s joint venture in China laid off 90 to 95 employees last week to cope with a challenging business outlook this year, two sources familiar with the situation said.
The layoffs come as Softbank tries to set up a public listing for Arm this year.
The Chinese market has been a major source of growth, although a two-year management dispute at the joint venture that resulted in the ousting of former chief executive officer Allen Wu (吳雄昂) created some challenges.
Photo: AP
The sources said those who lost their jobs were mostly engineers in research and development.
Before the layoffs, Arm China had about 700 employees. There were no layoffs last year when parent Arm Ltd had global layoffs affecting about 15 percent of its workforce, one of the sources said.
Arm China declined to comment.
“Arm China is a separate company from Arm Ltd, and while we cannot comment on its personnel decisions, we do not expect any disruption to our business in China, which continues to remain strong,” Arm Ltd said in a statement.
Last year’s layoffs came after Nvidia Corp failed to take over Arm because of regulatory hurdles.
The collapse of the sale marked a major setback for Softbank’s efforts to generate funds when valuations across its portfolio are under pressure.
Arm China is the exclusive distributor of Arm licenses in China. It collects payments and sends them to Arm Ltd, which delivers the technology directly to customers.
Some customers are concerned about Arm potentially changing how it charges royalties, as well as US-China geopolitical tensions that could cut off access to Arm technology, one of the sources said.
Chinese companies, including Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), have been restricted from using some of Arm’s technology in recent years.
Apple Inc has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence (AI) features to its devices, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have been finalizing terms for a pact to use ChatGPT features in Apple’s iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. Apple also has held talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. Those discussions have not led to an agreement, but are ongoing. An OpenAI
INSATIABLE: Almost all AI innovators are working with the chipmaker to address the rapidly growing AI-related demand for energy-efficient computing power, the CEO said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported about 60 percent annual growth in revenue for last month, benefiting from rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications. Revenue last month expanded to NT$236.02 billion (US$7.28 billion), compared with NT$147.9 billion in April last year, the second-highest level in company history, TSMC said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue surged 20.9 percent, from NT$195.21 billion in March. As AI-related applications continue to show strong growth, TSMC expects revenue to expand about 27.6 percent year-on-year during the current quarter to between US$19.6 billion and US$20.4 billion. That would
‘FULL SUPPORT’: Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said he hopes more companies would settle in the prefecture to create an area similar to Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park The newly elected governor of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture said he is ready to ensure wide-ranging support to woo Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to build its third Japanese chip factory there. Concerns of groundwater shortages when TSMC’s two plants begin operations in the prefecture’s Kikuyo have spurred discussions about the possibility of tapping unused dam water, Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said in an interview on Saturday. While Kimura said talks about a third plant have yet to occur, Bloomberg had reported TSMC is already considering its third Japanese fab — also in Kumamoto — which would make more advanced chips. “We are
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by