Arm Holdings

Acorn RISC Machine started as a humble project in the late 1980s before evolving into the invisible engine behind the global digital economy. Founded in 1990 by Robin Saxby alongside Sophie Wilson and Hermann Hauser, this British firm carved out a unique niche by refusing to manufacture silicon. Instead of building physical chips like Intel or AMD, Arm designs the intellectual property for CPU cores and GPUs that hundreds of partners license to build their own hardware.

The strategy has paid off with staggering scale. Roughly 99% of all smartphone processors worldwide run on Arm architecture, powering everything from budget feature phones to flagship devices. The company also supplies critical components for smartwatches, embedded systems, and increasingly, data centers looking for energy-efficient ways to train large language models. Its product suite includes the Mali and Immortalis GPU lines alongside development tools like DS-5 and Keil.

Leadership changes marked significant shifts in the company's trajectory. Simon Segars guided the organization through its acquisition by SoftBank Group in 2016 and its subsequent return to public markets via a direct listing on the NASDAQ in September 2023. Rene Haas now leads the firm after serving as President of Data Center and Networking at Nvidia. Recent market volatility followed reports in November 2026 suggesting Nvidia approached Haas to succeed Jensen Huang, highlighting the intense competition for top talent in the semiconductor sector. [edit]