Arm Holdings Plc, majority-owned by the SoftBank Group, marked a second consecutive quarter of $1 billion in revenue this year, as the Cambridge-based multinational gets increasingly termed as the artificial intelligence (AI) platform for everyone. Chief executive officer Rene Haas, who took the top job in 2022, estimates that headcount growth in India for the company will be greater than anywhere else in the world. The 63-year-old technology leader, who is also an avid podcaster, told Manu P Toms & Archana Rai in an exclusive interview that Arm is keen to partner with the Indian government through a framework that will also allow the country’s vibrant startups to access its AI technology. Edited excerpts:
There is talk of Arm getting into production from being a (semicon and software) designer for long. Will India play a role in that?
India is an amazing hotbed of talent for that kind of work. TI (Texas Instruments) opened a centre here in Bengaluru in the 1980s. When I was in Nvidia I went to Pune, where there is a big design centre. I mean, companies have had resources here for decades, and have developed an incredible sense of expertise.
So, we have not said anything public about building things, but we do develop a product we call compute subsystems, which is not a chip, but it is taking all the IP together and combining it with other IP that we make. It is close to a chip. Then someone can take it to production. Some three quarters of the people I met at our centre (in Bengaluru) are working on this. So, this region and this site are important to us.
What is it like to be a business leader in an age of disruption — in terms of tech and even, for instance, the tariff imbroglio?
We have to be far more nimble than we were in the past. For tech CEOs, government relations used to be something delegated to a third-party organisation, and (one) didn’t have to meet with state leaders very often. But I’m an optimist, it’s a great opportunity, right? Because now, particularly in semiconductors, which was a little bit of a forgotten industry, everyone is interested in how they’re made, and who they’re sold to, it is great, because it actually gives visibility. On a micro level, it gets students interested in studying it. Last month, I was at Carnegie Mellon University, which has a microelectronics elective that nine or 10 students signed up for. Now, it’s oversubscribed, because people see chips are important. And I read about it in the news. So that helps our industry, because we need smart engineers and more people to be interested in that world. So, it has helped.
What role will Indian team of Arm play in your future plans?
When I think about the market here, there are two dimensions of growth. One is to develop more and more solutions that require the kind of expertise that India is really good at. Putting complex blocks of IP together in the form that someone could build a chip. India is phenomenal at that, and we have groomed a lot of people in this area. The other big opportunity is in the need for an industrial policy that is around semiconductors and not just in designing chips for Western companies. It is local companies with a local ecosystem developing products in India, for India, by India, which is a huge, huge opportunity. There is no reason why India over the next decades would not become a huge (semiconductor hub).
What is your view of startups here? Will you work with govt?
We are meeting the (information technology) minister. I have never met him before. In previous regimes, there would not be a need to meet Arm. The fact that he is going to take time to come here is a statement, right? So, we want to work with the Indian government.
We did something creative in Malaysia with an agreement with the government where they were the customers, where they allow startups to engage and get access to technology. There is no reason we could not do that with India. We are having a lot of discussions about that. And in theory, India should be a big market compared to Malaysia. So that is one of the things we are hopeful of.
So, what does this mean about your hiring plans in India?
This building is full; we plan to expand more. We will grow faster here than we do in other parts of the world. Okay, we have a lot of engineers in UK. We have a number of engineers in US. But this region will grow faster than anywhere else.
Technology is advancing far more rapidly than we have ever seen, but the governing institutions on a global scale appear to be in disarray.
It is always difficult for governments and regulators to keep up with technology, which is the nature of how the beast works. I think with this one (AI), it is a little trickier, because if it does not go the right way, the implications are quite serious. So, corporations and governments need to work together, probably in a way that they have not before, to make sure that the appropriate guidelines and regulations are in place. I would not compare it to nuclear disarmament, but in some ways, it is not dissimilar, right? Because you have this incredible capability. And with nuclear arms, you have countries that get together and decide exactly what is the appropriate way to govern their proliferation. To some extent, AI tools are not dissimilar in that if they go the wrong way.
Your majority investor SoftBank is investing in AI. In this rapidly evolving space, where do you see Arm headed?
I think one of the benefits we have about our partnership with SoftBank is that the synergy between the two companies is pretty high, and SoftBank announced in January a big investment with OpenAI Stargate Project. We were listed as a technology partner. We have a lot of opportunities to expand what our footprint looks like there. We haven’t said anything publicly about that, but when you look at the kind of things that SoftBank is doing with the acquisitions they're making with Graphcore and the intended acquisition of Ampere, the synergy between the type of things Arm does, the potential partnership is very beneficial for us.
Are you eyeing acquisitions?
We are always looking.
Anything that you found in India?
Nothing that we can say publicly. We are always thinking about it.
INDIA RISING There’s no reason why India over next decades would not become a huge semiconductor hub.
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There is talk of Arm getting into production from being a (semicon and software) designer for long. Will India play a role in that?
India is an amazing hotbed of talent for that kind of work. TI (Texas Instruments) opened a centre here in Bengaluru in the 1980s. When I was in Nvidia I went to Pune, where there is a big design centre. I mean, companies have had resources here for decades, and have developed an incredible sense of expertise.
So, we have not said anything public about building things, but we do develop a product we call compute subsystems, which is not a chip, but it is taking all the IP together and combining it with other IP that we make. It is close to a chip. Then someone can take it to production. Some three quarters of the people I met at our centre (in Bengaluru) are working on this. So, this region and this site are important to us.
What is it like to be a business leader in an age of disruption — in terms of tech and even, for instance, the tariff imbroglio?
We have to be far more nimble than we were in the past. For tech CEOs, government relations used to be something delegated to a third-party organisation, and (one) didn’t have to meet with state leaders very often. But I’m an optimist, it’s a great opportunity, right? Because now, particularly in semiconductors, which was a little bit of a forgotten industry, everyone is interested in how they’re made, and who they’re sold to, it is great, because it actually gives visibility. On a micro level, it gets students interested in studying it. Last month, I was at Carnegie Mellon University, which has a microelectronics elective that nine or 10 students signed up for. Now, it’s oversubscribed, because people see chips are important. And I read about it in the news. So that helps our industry, because we need smart engineers and more people to be interested in that world. So, it has helped.
What role will Indian team of Arm play in your future plans?
When I think about the market here, there are two dimensions of growth. One is to develop more and more solutions that require the kind of expertise that India is really good at. Putting complex blocks of IP together in the form that someone could build a chip. India is phenomenal at that, and we have groomed a lot of people in this area. The other big opportunity is in the need for an industrial policy that is around semiconductors and not just in designing chips for Western companies. It is local companies with a local ecosystem developing products in India, for India, by India, which is a huge, huge opportunity. There is no reason why India over the next decades would not become a huge (semiconductor hub).
What is your view of startups here? Will you work with govt?
We are meeting the (information technology) minister. I have never met him before. In previous regimes, there would not be a need to meet Arm. The fact that he is going to take time to come here is a statement, right? So, we want to work with the Indian government.
We did something creative in Malaysia with an agreement with the government where they were the customers, where they allow startups to engage and get access to technology. There is no reason we could not do that with India. We are having a lot of discussions about that. And in theory, India should be a big market compared to Malaysia. So that is one of the things we are hopeful of.
So, what does this mean about your hiring plans in India?
This building is full; we plan to expand more. We will grow faster here than we do in other parts of the world. Okay, we have a lot of engineers in UK. We have a number of engineers in US. But this region will grow faster than anywhere else.
Technology is advancing far more rapidly than we have ever seen, but the governing institutions on a global scale appear to be in disarray.
It is always difficult for governments and regulators to keep up with technology, which is the nature of how the beast works. I think with this one (AI), it is a little trickier, because if it does not go the right way, the implications are quite serious. So, corporations and governments need to work together, probably in a way that they have not before, to make sure that the appropriate guidelines and regulations are in place. I would not compare it to nuclear disarmament, but in some ways, it is not dissimilar, right? Because you have this incredible capability. And with nuclear arms, you have countries that get together and decide exactly what is the appropriate way to govern their proliferation. To some extent, AI tools are not dissimilar in that if they go the wrong way.
Your majority investor SoftBank is investing in AI. In this rapidly evolving space, where do you see Arm headed?
I think one of the benefits we have about our partnership with SoftBank is that the synergy between the two companies is pretty high, and SoftBank announced in January a big investment with OpenAI Stargate Project. We were listed as a technology partner. We have a lot of opportunities to expand what our footprint looks like there. We haven’t said anything publicly about that, but when you look at the kind of things that SoftBank is doing with the acquisitions they're making with Graphcore and the intended acquisition of Ampere, the synergy between the type of things Arm does, the potential partnership is very beneficial for us.
Are you eyeing acquisitions?
We are always looking.
Anything that you found in India?
Nothing that we can say publicly. We are always thinking about it.
INDIA RISING There’s no reason why India over next decades would not become a huge semiconductor hub.
Add 
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