Ampere Computing, an Arm processor designer backed by Oracle and utilised in its cloud infrastructure, had initially planned to go public. However, it has abruptly reversed this decision and is now seeking a buyer.
A proxy statement filed on Wednesday reveals that Oracle held a 29 per cent stake in Ampere as of 31 May 2024, with the potential to gain majority control over the chip manufacturer by 2027. "The total carrying value of our investments in Ampere, after accounting for losses under the equity method of accounting, was $1.5 billion as of 31 May 2024," the filing states. Additionally, Oracle disclosed that it extended $600 million in loans as convertible debt to Ampere during its 2024 fiscal year, supplementing the $400 million in debt provided during the previous fiscal year. Ampere's debts are set to mature beginning June 2026, at which point Oracle can convert these investments into additional equity in the chip startup.
"If we or our co-investors exercise either of such options, we would obtain control of Ampere and consolidate its results with our results of operations," the filing explains.
Oracle spent approximately $48 million on Ampere processors during its 2023 fiscal year, with purchases made both directly from Ampere and through a third party. In contrast, Oracle spent a mere $3 million on Ampere's chips and had $101.1 million worth of products available under a pre-payment order by the end of fiscal year 2024. Oracle aggressively expands its data centre footprint to meet the growing demand for AI infrastructure.
These expansion efforts have included the deployment of extensive clusters of GPUs from Nvidia and AMD, with the most significant campus developments approaching a gigawatt in scale.
To compete with Ampere's 192-core chips, Intel and AMD have introduced rival products featuring 128 to 288 cores. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Google have announced their own custom Arm silicon, with their Cobalt and Axion chips, respectively. Arm itself has been promoting its Compute Subsystems (CSS) offering for customers desiring a customised chip without the need to design one from scratch.
Ampere recently unveiled a 256-core version of its AmpereOne processor family, slated for release next year, and is also working on a 512-core variant.