Arm is making its first chip — with Meta already waiting in line

Arm (SFTBY+1.61%) is reportedly making its first chip — and counting on Meta (META+0.32%) to be one of its first customers.

The British chip designer could launch its first in-house chip by the summer, the Financial Times reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. Producing its own chip would be a massive change to Arm’s business of licensing its chip designs to companies such as Nvidia (NVDA+3.01%) and Apple (AAPL+1.95%).

Masayoshi Son, the founder of Arm’s majority owner, SoftBank Group, reportedly wants Arm to move into chip production as part of a larger plan for artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to the Financial Times.

The Arm chip will be a central processing unit, or CPU, for large data center servers, and will be customizable for Meta and other customers, people told the Financial Times. This could put Arm in competition with Intel (INTC+7.03%) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD-0.26%), which produce most of the server chips for Big Tech companies.

In May, Nikkei Asia reported that Arm is putting together an AI chip unit, with plans to launch a prototype by spring of this year, and mass produce chips by the fall.

Arm declined to comment. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Son involved in the half-a-trillion-dollar U.S. AI infrastructure plan, Stargate, alongside OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Oracle (ORCL+0.89%) chief technology officer Larry Ellison. SoftBank and OpenAI are co-leading the project, with SoftBank taking financial responsibility and OpenAI overseeing operations. Son will be Stargate’s chairman.

The new venture “intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States,” the AI startup said in a statement. Stargate is starting with an initial $100 billion investment, counting OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi-based AI investor MGX as initial equity funders.