October 22, 2020
By Sam Nussey and Saeed Azhar
TOKYO/DUBAI (Reuters) – SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son said on Thursday the sale of chip designer Arm to Nvidia Corp will drive growth in computing power, in his first public comments since the $40 billion deal was announced in September.
Son made the comments at a virtual summit about artificial intelligence hosted by the government of Saudi Arabia, in which he reiterated his belief that AI would transform society.
The Nvidia deal, part of a series of asset sales by Son whose group has been shaken by soured investments and the COVID-19 pandemic, has raised concerns it will threaten Arm’s role as a neutral supplier in the industry.
(Reporting by Sam Nussey in Tokyo and Saeed Azhar in Dubai; editing by Mark Potter and Jason Neely)
