Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Mon, 16 Dec 2024
Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge, guest hosts this episode of Decoder featuring a live interview with Arm CEO Rene Haas about the future of AI and the semiconductor industry. The two discuss his thoughts on the struggles of Intel, the rumors Arm is developing its own AI chips to rival Nvidia’s, and his thoughts on the incoming Trump administration. Links: What Arm’s CEO makes of the Intel debacle | Command Line How Arm conquered the chip market without making a single chip | Decoder Arm could be the unexpected winner of the AI investment boom | FT Arm to reportedly launch AI chips by 2025 to capture explosive demand | CNBC Intel’s CEO is out after only three years | The Verge What happened to Intel? | The Verge Nvidia plans ARM-based PC platform to rival Intel, AMD | DigiTimes Qualcomm x Arm beef escalates | The Verge Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24084728 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge, filling in for Nilay while we finish out the year here on the show. On another recent episode, I teased an interview with the CEO of chip design company Arm, and today we have that interview for you. I sat down live in Silicon Valley earlier this month with Arm's CEO, Rene Haas, at an event hosted by Alex Partners.
It was a really fun conversation, and I think you're going to like it. Rene is a fascinating character in the tech industry. He's worked at two of the most important chip companies in the world, first NVIDIA and now ARM. That means he's had a front row seat to how the industry has changed in the shift from desktop to mobile and how AI is now changing everything all over again.
Arm has been central to these shifts as the company that doesn't build but rather designs some of the most important computer chips in the world. Arm's architectures are behind Apple's custom iPhone and Mac chips, they're in electric cars, and they're powering AWS servers that host huge chunks of the internet.
When he was last on Decoder a couple of years ago, Rene called Arm the Switzerland of the electronics industry, thanks to how prevalent its designs are. But his business is getting more complex in the age of AI, as you'll hear us discuss. There have been rumors that Arm is planning to not only design but build its own AI chips, which would put it into competition with some of its key customers.
I pressed Rene on these rumors quite a bit, and I think it's safe to say he's planning something. When Rene was last on Decoder, he was about six months into the CEO job after Nvidia failed to buy Arm for $40 billion. After regulatory pressure killed that deal, Rene led Arm through an IPO, which has been tremendously successful for Arm and its majority investor, the Japanese tech giant SoftBank.
I asked Rene about that SoftBank relationship and what it's like working with its eccentric CEO, Masayoshi-san. I also made sure to ask Rene about the problems over at Intel. There have been reports that Rene looked at buying part of Intel recently, so I wanted to know what he thinks should happen to the struggling chipmaker.
Of course, I also asked about the incoming Trump administration, the U.S. versus China debate, the threat of tariffs, and all that. Rene is a public company CEO now, so he has to be more careful when answering questions like these. But I think you'll find a lot of his answers quite illuminating. I know I did. Okay, Arm CEO Rene Haas, here we go. Rene Haas, you are the CEO of Arm.
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