UK semiconductor developer Arm has revealed plans to produce in-house silicon chips for the first time, inking a partnership with Meta to develop a new class of CPUs to support data centres and large-scale AI deployments. 

Through its collaboration with Arm, Meta said it aims to co-develop multiple generations of new CPUs to enable “massive compute power in limited space”, supporting the firm’s plans for AI-optimised data centres and large gigawatt-scale AI deployments.

Arm said that the first release, the AGI CPU, is being built around 136 high‑performance cores, each with 6GB/s memory bandwidth, and a 300‑watt power profile with a dedicated core per program thread.

It’s also being developed to fit into dense, energy‑efficient servers, with more than 8,100 cores in a standard air‑cooled rack, or more than 45,000 cores in liquid‑cooled systems, with the firm aiming to maximise “usable compute” in existing power envelopes for greater workload density.

Arm claims that its AGI CPU delivers more than 2x performance per rack versus x86 CPUs, and could see firms make up to $10 billion in CAPEX savings per GW of AI data centre capacity, though Mohamed Awad, Arm’s cloud AI head, told CNBC that the chip has been “ruthlessly optimised” for AI, potentially limiting wider appeal.

However, that perhaps makes it the perfect piece of silicon for Meta as it looks to build its hardware stack in the race to compete with OpenAI and Google, with the firm intending to use the chip to optimise infrastructure for its family of apps.

Recommended reading

• Chipmaker Fractile to Invest £100m to Back UK’s AI Ambitions
• Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Reached $793 Billion in 2025
• How Can the UK Create a Sovereign AI Chip Design Industry?

“AI’s next era will be defined by delivering efficiency at scale. Partnering with Meta, we’re uniting Arm’s performance-per-watt leadership with Meta’s AI innovation to bring smarter, more efficient intelligence everywhere — from milliwatts to megawatts,” said Arm CEO, Rene Haas.

The announcement of Arm’s chip saw shares in the firm jump by 15%, with expectations that it will generate $15 billion in revenue over the next five years, according to Haas.

According to CNBC, a report from Citi analysts described Arm’s move to produce its own silicon as the “most significant shift in the company’s history,” with the expected revenue boost driving billions in extra profit, outweighing any concern about changes to the firm’s margins.