Arm thinks AI agents will trigger a CPU supercycle?

Arm Holdings plc (ARM) has spent decades building the architectural foundation underneath the global smartphone industry. Founded in 1990 as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple (AAPL), and VLSI Technology, Arm operated as a semiconductor intellectual-property company that licensed CPU architectures and core designs to semiconductor companies rather than manufacturing chips itself. Over the next three decades, Arm evolved into the dominant CPU architecture supplier for smartphones and embedded devices, with its designs incorporated into billions of chips annually across mobile, networking, automotive, and cloud infrastructure markets. In September 2020, Nvidia attempted to acquire Arm from SoftBank for approximately $40 billion in order to strengthen its position in AI and edge computing, but the transaction collapsed in February 2022 following regulatory opposition in the United States, Europe, and China. SoftBank instead completed Arm’s Nasdaq IPO in September 2023 at $51 p