Arm Hires Amazon AI Executive to Drive Custom Chip Development

• Arm hires Amazon’s Rami Sinno to lead development of complete AI-focused chips.
• CEO Rene Haas plans to invest in chiplets and full chip systems.
• Arm bolsters team with HPE’s Nicolas Dube and Intel’s Steve Halter.

Arm Holdings, a leading chip architecture designer, has hired Rami Sinno, Amazon’s former AI chip Director, to advance its ambitious plan to develop complete chips. Sinno previously led the development of Amazon’s Trainium and Inferentia AI chips, designed for building and running large-scale AI applications.

This strategic hire aligns with Arm’s goal to expand beyond its traditional role of providing processor architecture and instruction sets to customers like Apple and Nvidia, who integrate Arm technology into their chips.

In July, Arm’s CEO Rene Haas revealed the company’s intent to invest profits in creating its own chips, including chiplets smaller, function-specific chip components that are combined to form complete systems. This marks a significant shift for Arm, which has historically focused on licensing its designs and collecting royalties from chips sold by its customers. Arm-based processors dominate the smartphone market and have gained traction in the data center sector, challenging rivals like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

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To support its new direction, Arm has been recruiting top talent from competitors. In addition to Sinno, the company recently brought on Nicolas Dube, a systems design expert from HPE, and Steve Halter, a chip engineer with experience at Intel and Qualcomm. These hires strengthen Arm’s efforts to design complete chips and systems, building on plans in February, based on sealed exhibits from a December trial. Sinno’s expertise from Amazon, where he worked on chips to compete with Nvidia’s AI-focused graphics processors, positions Arm to develop cost-effective, high-performance solutions for the growing AI market.

Arm, majority-owned by SoftBank Group, is leveraging its industry influence to transition from an intellectual property provider to a full-fledged chip designer, aiming to capture a larger share of the semiconductor market.