Arm CEO Rene Haas. Image credit: YouTube
Rene Haas, the current CEO of the UK-based chip design giant Arm, may soon be taking on a massive second job. According to a report by The Financial Times, Haas is in line to lead a large portion of SoftBank Group’s international business to turbocharge the Japanese conglomerate’s ambitions in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor manufacturing.
According to the report, if approved, the new dual-role would make Haas one of the most powerful lieutenants to SoftBank’s billionaire founder, Masayoshi Son.
Haas may lead ‘Project Izanagi’
Haas is expected to take on a top title at SoftBank Group International, operating this position alongside his current duties as Arm’s CEO, the report said, adding that in this new capacity, he is expected to oversee SoftBank’s operations in semiconductors, AI and potentially robotics.The primary goal of this promotion is to push forward Project Izanagi, which is SoftBank’s aggressive AI chip strategy aimed at taking on established industry heavyweights like Nvidia.However, sources warned the publication that the new role is still pending official approval from both the SoftBank and Arm boards and may still undergo changes. However, it is understood that while Haas will lead the tech and chip infrastructure side, he will not be tasked with running SoftBank’s Vision Fund investment vehicles or its energy sector.
Masayoshi Son’s plan for AI
The potential appointment aligns with Masayoshi Son’s vision. He believes that AI is the next major stage of human development and wants SoftBank to be at the absolute centre of it, covering power generation, data centers, chip design and robotics.SoftBank has already pumped tens of billions of dollars into AI leaders like OpenAI. It has also acquired chip companies like Graphcore and Ampere. Meanwhile, the company is also building US-based infrastructure, including the massive “Stargate” data centre project and the world’s largest gas-fired power plant in Ohio to fuel these facilities.In March, Arm unveiled its first-ever data centre CPU, called the Arm AGI CPU, designed for Agentic A system that reasons, plans and acts autonomously rather than simply responding to individual queries. Historically, Arm’s business model has been licensing its chip architecture to other companies, who then design and manufacture their own processors based on that technology. For the first time, Arm is producing the chip.
