Beijing, China, Cambridge, UK, and Tokyo, Japan, April 29, 2022 – Arm Ltd, HOPU Investment, and SoftBank Group, acting in their capacity as direct and indirect shareholders holding majority equity interest in Arm China, are announcing the company’s longstanding corporate governance issue has been resolved following a unanimous vote by the Arm China Board of Directors.
In full compliance with Chinese law, the Arm China Board of Directors has appointed Dr. Renchen Liu and Dr. Eric Chen as the company’s co-CEOs. Dr. Liu has also been duly registered and accepted by local Shenzhen government authorities as the company's legal representative and general manager. These appointments are effective immediately.
Arm remains committed to the Chinese market, Arm China as an independent operating company majority owned by Chinese investors, and to the success of Arm’s Chinese ecosystem partners.
The strategic partnership, IP license agreement and business model between Arm and Arm China remains unchanged. Arm China will continue to be the exclusive commercial distribution channel for Arm to license its IP to Chinese licensees. Arm China will also continue to develop its own IP. Under the new leadership, Arm China will be committed to a customer-first culture, serving its customers fairly, equally, and without discrimination.
Dr. Liu and Dr. Chen both have extensive engineering, investment and leadership experience. Dr. Liu is deeply connected with the Chinese technology industry and has extensive leadership experience as he has served the general manager, or an IC member of several technology investment funds and research institutions. Dr. Liu holds a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University and a Ph.D. from Oxford University.
Dr. Chen currently serves as Managing Partner and Head of China at SoftBank Investment Advisers (the company that manages SoftBank Vision Fund). Previously Dr. Chen served as cofounder and CEO of Brion Technologies (a high-performance computing company later acquired by ASML) and cofounder and chairman of BaseBit Technologies, a confidential computing data technology company. He currently serves as an independent director of Applied Materials. Dr. Chen has a background in physics from Peking University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
About Arm
Arm technology is at the heart of a computing and data revolution that is transforming the way people live and businesses operate. Our energy-efficient processor designs and software platforms have enabled advanced computing in more than 215 billion chips and our technologies securely power products from the sensor to the smartphone and the supercomputer. Together with 1,000+ technology partners we are at the forefront of designing, securing and managing all areas of AI-enhanced connected compute from the chip to the cloud.
