Evidence-backed European AI register
Graphcore
Reviewed identity, roles, model listings, pricing and evidence for Graphcore.
Dataset compiled 2026-08-28 · evidence over inference
Reviewed identity
- Headquarters scope
- headquarters unknown
- Headquarters country
- unknown
- Headquarters city
- unknown
- Legal entity
- Ltd (UK private limited company)
- Ownership
- wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp (Japan) — acquired July 2024 for a reported ~$500M, with a further ~$457M injected
- Founded
- 2016
- Confidence
- high
- Last verified
- 2026-08-22
Headquarters evidence
No qualifying headquarters passage was promoted.
Reviewed sources discuss acquisition and Bristol operations, but not current qualifying headquarters wording.
Evidence boundaries
Organisation listings identify a reviewed canonical record. Headquarters is independent of incorporation, registered offices, ownership, hosting and runtime. Model listings show an association in the source register; they do not by themselves establish model creation, current API availability, hosting location or infrastructure ownership.
Model listings
- Bow IPU (Intelligence Processing Unit)
- Type
- text
- Parameters
- unknown
- Context
- unknown
- Languages
- unknown
- Licence
- hardware product
- Release
- 2022
- Izanagi (in development)
- Type
- text
- Parameters
- unknown
- Context
- unknown
- Languages
- unknown
- Licence
- hardware product
- Release
- unknown
Profile note
OWNERSHIP CAVEAT: the UK's flagship AI-chip company and once its clearest challenger to NVIDIA (peak valuation ~$2.8B), Graphcore was acquired outright by SoftBank in July 2024 and is now a wholly owned Japanese-controlled subsidiary, though HQ and engineering remain in Bristol and it retains the Graphcore name. Hardware, not models. The last Bow IPU product dates from 2022; the current effort is Izanagi, an IPU + Ampere Arm CPU design aimed at SoftBank's Stargate build-out in the US and Japan. The clearest single example of UK AI-hardware sovereignty being lost to a foreign acquirer. No publ…
Record sources
- https://www.eetimes.com/ai-chip-startup-graphcore-acquired-by-softbank/
- https://www.networkworld.com/article/2518797/softbank-acquires-ai-chip-designer-graphcore.html
- https://www.turingpost.com/p/graphcore-unicorn-softbank-acquisition-happened
- https://www.exxactcorp.com/blog/HPC/graphcore-bow-ipu
- https://docs.graphcore.ai/