Arm CEO Says $15B AI Chip Revenue Goal May Arrive Years Early

A Chip Designer Reinvents Itself

Arm Holdings, long known as the company whose designs power the processor in nearly every smartphone on the planet, is now staking its future on the data centre. CEO Rene Haas told Bloomberg Television this week that he is "very confident" the company will hit its $15 billion AI chip revenue milestone, adding that there are indications it could arrive sooner than the previously stated end-of-decade timeline. The reason is simple: demand from companies racing to build data centres and AI services has outstripped projections.

From Smartphones to the Cloud

The accelerated outlook builds on a dramatic strategic pivot. For decades Arm licensed its designs to other chipmakers rather than building processors itself. In March, it broke that mould by unveiling its first in-house processor, the AGI CPU, purpose-built for AI data centres. Meta signed on as lead customer, with OpenAI, Cloudflare, SAP, and SK Telecom among the early adopters. Haas originally projected the AGI CPU would generate roughly $15 billion in annual revenue by 2031, feeding into a broader $25 billion total annual revenue target.

Doubling Down

The company has since doubled its near-term guidance for the new data centre chips to $2 billion across fiscal years 2027 and 2028, up from a prior $1 billion forecast. Manufactured by TSMC on its 3-nanometre process, the chip is expected to enter mass production in the second half of 2026. Arm, a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, reported data centre revenue growth of more than 100% year-on-year earlier this year, and Haas predicts the segment will become the company's largest business within a few years.

The Export Question

Haas also weighed in on US export controls targeting AI chips bound for China, cautioning that restricting CPU exports poses unique challenges. Unlike specialised AI accelerators, CPUs are ubiquitous across computing applications, making it difficult to isolate AI-specific uses. The issue gained fresh urgency after the US Commerce Department moved to close a loophole that had allowed advanced AI chips to reach Chinese subsidiaries operating outside China. The tightened rules apply licensing requirements to all entities with parent companies headquartered in China, regardless of where the subsidiary sits. Haas has previously argued, alongside other industry leaders, that export controls risk slowing technological progress and ultimately harming consumers.