What does Arm do?

Arm designs core semiconductor components and licences the blueprints, along with the fundamental code governing how software communicates with chips. The arrangement brought in US$2.68 billion revenue in the fiscal year that ended on Mar 31, making Arm one of Britain’s largest technology companies.

Japan’s SoftBank Group acquired Arm for US$32 billion in 2016, delisting it from the London Stock Exchange. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has regularly talked up the potential for Arm’s future growth, saying he wants the debut to be “the biggest” in the history of the chip industry. Raising as much as US$10 billion would make it the largest in the US since electric-vehicle maker Rivian Automotive’s US$13.7 billion offering in November 2021. It could rank near or even just below the tech industry’s largest-ever IPOs: Alibaba Group Holding raised a US$25 billion offering in 2014 and Meta Platforms (then called Facebook) brought in US$16 billion in 2012.