Intel, which is currently laying off thousands of staff to cut costs, has sold its stake in chip technology company ARM Holdings. 

The US company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday (13 August) that it no longer owns 1.18 million shares in the UK chip maker. 

Intel’s divestment of Arm’s shares followed the delivery of one of its worst earnings reports since its inception 56-years-ago. Intel has been taking drastic efficiency measures, including the cutting 15,000 jobs and cutbacks on business expenses. 

Despite divesting its Arm shares, the company reported a loss of $120m on its equity investments for the same period. 

UK semiconductor company Arm is majority-owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group and licenses chip designs to companies in the semiconductor industry.

Arm creates the architecture on which the chips are built and then sells licenses to chip makers. According to the company, almost all of the world’s leading smartphones are powered with chips using its architecture. 

Arm is set to launch its own AI chips by 2025, as the AI chip race continues to heat up.

The UK-based chip maker will develop a prototype by Spring 2025 in a new AI chip factory, according to a Nikkei Asia report. Mass production of Arm’s AI chips is set to begin by Autumn 2025.

Japanese multinational holding company SoftBank, which owns 90% of Arm, is reportedly in talks with Taiwan’s TSMC and other contractors. 

In April, it was reported that SoftBank Group will invest $960m by 2025 to create state-of-the-art GenAI.

SoftBank‘s computing network will reportedly be the most powerful in Japan once the investment is completed, as the company looks to create powerful specialised Japanese GenAI. 

The graphics processing units used to develop SoftBank’s GenAI technology will be bought from NVIDIA, the largest chip designer in the US.