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SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son has many wild ideas. He believes that robots with an IQ exceeding 10,000 will surpass humans within 30 years. He has also considered taking SoftBank private, which would be the largest leveraged buyout in history if realized. He once raised $45 billion in investment funds in just 45 minutes. He even planned to launch a second record-breaking Vision Fund while holding the first Vision Fund. This series of wild ideas often leads to massive deals that shock various industries with speed and boldness.
Image | SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son
ARM Holdings CEO Simon Segars stated that in 2016, Masayoshi Son called him and requested a meeting, “because I (Son) have a crazy idea.” Thus, the $32 billion acquisition was completed in less than a week.
“For ordinary people, this was too unexpected. This deal is unforgettable for me, and I will tell this story to my employees for the rest of my life,” Segars added.
ARM had no intention of selling. Founded in 1990, the company has a strong momentum in chip design and licensing business and has been publicly listed for about 20 years. Over the past decade, it has leveraged the wave of smartphone development to apply its technology to 95% of the world’s smartphone chips. A few years before being acquired by SoftBank, ARM ventured into connected devices and the “Internet of Things” (IoT) product sector, further expanding its potential market. Segars estimates that global chip manufacturers will sell 100 billion chips in the next four years. He noted that of the 5.1 billion ARM chips currently on the market, about half are used for industrial purposes.
During its development, ARM’s sales and stock prices have continuously risen, and management naturally did not want to sell. However, Masayoshi Son’s vision of the future world influenced by artificial intelligence and connected devices, along with his ability to protect ARM’s future under a single shareholder, resonated with Segars.
Segars stated, “There is always a trade-off between profitability and investment. Masayoshi Son’s view of life far exceeds the perspective of any investor you will encounter. He thinks in terms of 30 years, or even 300 years, so even if it means sacrificing today’s possibilities, he will invest for significant future growth.”
Now, one year after the acquisition, ARM is actively expanding its business into new areas, particularly Industrial IoT. This includes using sensors and chips in cities to track traffic patterns, more efficiently schedule traffic lights, or enabling agricultural practitioners to use connected devices to streamline operations, such as precise herbicide sprayers.
While the opportunities are enticing, they come with security risks. More connected devices mean more opportunities for hackers to invade. Segars believes the IoT industry should collectively address this issue. “It’s easy to say ‘this is not my problem,’ but the industry’s perspective on ‘who is responsible for security’ needs to change. Providing mature technology cannot be done without collaboration among different players in the technology supply chain.”
Image | ARM Official Website
Segars envisions one collaborative model as increasing the security ratings of devices, similar to crash test ratings for cars. Given that the connected device industry is an emerging field, this is a practical solution. ARM is developing an operating system for IoT devices that will adhere to the highest standards of cybersecurity.
Looking ahead, the massive data collected by connected devices will be a significant challenge for ARM and its users. Segars stated that the key to addressing this issue is to give people more control and transparency over data collection, ownership, and the ways it can be used. Similarly, ARM plans to enhance the data processing capabilities of the devices themselves so that services can identify and store important data while discarding the rest, which can also save costs for data collection companies. “If you just take a model—collect all the data and transfer it to the cloud, the efficiency of this approach is simply too low. I don’t care how many extra hard drives are produced, but the total amount of data generated and the storage costs will be severely disconnected, which is unacceptable.”
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Editor: Ren
References:
https://www.wired.com/story/phone-chip-designer-tackles-industrial-internet-of-things/
