Arm plans to spin off IoT businesses under SoftBank banner as it focuses on core chip design business

Arm today announced plans to spin off its two IoT businesses, a move that would effectively transfer the divisions under the broader umbrella of the SoftBank Group core, which purchased the chip designer back in 2016. The move comes as Arm seeks to focus its efforts exclusively on the semiconductor IP business that has made the company a ubiquitous presence in the mobile world.

The transfer is pending additional review from the company's board, along with standard regulatory reviews - though Arm says it expects the move to be completed before the end of September of this year. While it would effectively remove the IoT Platform and Treasure Data businesses from its brand, the company says it plans to continue to collaborate with the ISG (IoT Services Group) businesses. The company will retain its business on the compute IP aspect of IoT, while leaving the data software and services aspects as their own spin-off businesses.

Arm believes there are great opportunities in the symbiotic growth of data and compute," ARM CEO Simon Segars said in a release tied to the news. SoftBank's experience in managing fast-growing, early-stage businesses would enable ISG to maximize its value in capturing the data opportunity. Arm would be in a stronger position to innovate in our core IP roadmap and provide our partners with greater support to capture the expanding opportunities for compute solutions across a range of markets."

Arm's IoT business has seen quite a bit of success, with its technologies shipping on billions of devices and the planned goal of one trillion expected next decade.