Testimony by Arm CEO Rene Haas clashes with a new report that Arm intends to launch its own chips

Is Arm a chipmaker or just a silicon design firm?

A recent review by Laptop Mag of the official court transcript from the explosive Arm v. Qualcomm trial that ended two months ago reveals statements made by Arm CEO Rene Haas clarifying his company's role in the chip industry: "Qualcomm sells chips, and we don't." When further pressed by Qualcomm's attorney, Haas confirmed, "We don't build chips."

Yet, the Financial Times, citing "people familiar with the UK-based group’s plans," reported last week that Arm is planning to make and sell its own silicon — a significant departure from its current strategy. The FT reported that the Arm chips would be part of a contract with Meta for use in data centers.

While more competition in the computing space often breeds innovation, this is a significant change for Arm's business strategy that could put Arm at odds with its biggest partners. Arm primarily licenses chip designs to its partners and licenses its Arm instruction set for those machines.

Arm has not responded to requests from Laptop Mag to comment on the Financial Times report. The company also declined to comment to the Financial Times last week.

So what is Arm's new chip, and what does it mean for the computing industry?

Arm's ambitious new chip plans

As the FT puts it, Arm manufacturing chipsets is a "radical change" to the design firm's usual business model. Traditionally, Arm licenses designs and the Arm instruction set to companies like AMD, Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and MediaTek. Arm's partners

While Arm is designing and selling these chips, Arm's new silicon will be manufactured by an external manufacturer. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Intel, Broadcom, and Samsung all produce chips, though it’s unclear who would handle manufacturing Arm's silicon.

Arm's parent company, SoftBank, is closing an acquisition for a chip design company called Ampere. This acquisition is believed to be part of Arm's chipmaking project.

How Arm's new chip could shake up the computing industry

The December case between Qualcomm and Arm ended in a ruling in favor of Qualcomm, and defended Qualcomm's ability to use the Oryon CPU cores in its Snapdragon X series chips that power Copilot+ AI PCs.

The cores were based on licensed Arm technology developed by Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired in 2021. Nuvia was set to pay a higher royalty rate to Arm than Qualcomm based on a pre-existing deal with Arm.

However, Nuvia worked on data center chipsets before those designs were repurposed for Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips for consumer laptops. Arm's reported data center chip may be just the starting point.

One of Qualcomm's main arguments in the first court case with Arm was that Arm intended to make its own chips and viewed Qualcomm as a competitor rather than a business partner.

The trial also included an exchange between members of Arm's leadership about building a chip, which reads, in part, "Think of it: if we build [a chip], the rest are hosed." Laptop Mag has viewed transcripts from the trial that aren't yet widely available.

Qualcomm and Arm have a second court case scheduled for March 2026.

If Arm does indeed move into selling its own consumer-level chipsets, as the FT reported last week, Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, Nvidia, and MediaTek might become competitors, as all hold licenses to Arm's technology to create their silicon.

Granted, the Arm chip in question would be designed for data center use, but the Qualcomm Oryon cores started as part of data center chips, so there is certainly precedent for translating an Arm-based data center CPU into a consumer-level design.

More from Laptop Mag

• "We were not going to prevail in that lawsuit": Arm admits its legal feud with Qualcomm was a lost cause
• “The consumer wins either way”: Arm’s Chris Bergey on the rise of Arm computing and the rivalry with x86
• Arm CEO Rene Haas says Intel's turmoil is 'a little sad' while sidestepping acquisition rumors