(Bloomberg) -- Graphcore, the chip designer acquired by SoftBank Group Corp. in July, is boosting its workforce 20% by adding 75 jobs globally, a sign of the parent company’s ambitions in the semiconductor industry.
The new roles, which include positions in silicon design and data center engineering, will be based in the UK, Poland and Taiwan, Graphcore said in a statement.
Based in Bristol, Graphcore was one of Britain’s most promising startups, reaching a $2.8 billion valuation on the promise of challenging Nvidia Corp. with chips tailored for artificial intelligence. But Graphcore struggled to get sales traction and expand in China, a market it left in 2023 while laying off most of its staff in the country. The company sold to SoftBank for less money than it raised from investors, Bloomberg News reported.
The new round of hiring will bring Graphcore’s workforce to about 450 people.
SoftBank’s founder Masayoshi Son has pivoted from his aggressive venture capital investing to focus on chips and AI, built around its majority holding in Arm Holdings Plc. When Graphcore joined SoftBank, the company declined to share if and how it would be working with Arm.
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