Two Arm executives have been drafted in to help the Government drive the most radical overhaul of technical education ever undertaken in the UK.

Simon Humphrey and Khaled Benkrid (pictured above) from the Cambridge-based superchip architect have been appointed to the UK Department of Education’s new advisory T level panels.

At the heart of this shake-up is a set of new technical qualifications called T levels, which aim to simplify vocational training in Britain. 

Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening, announced the T panels as part of this package of reforms, designed to ensure that young people and adults benefit from a high quality technical education system that meets the expectations of modern employers.

Arm’s senior corporate responsibility manager Simon Humphrey has been appointed to the Data and Digital Business Services T panel, and Khaled Benkrid, Arm’s senior director of education and research, has joined the T panel on Engineering and Manufacturing: Design, Development and Control.
 
In these roles, the technology gurus will advise the Government on content for the new T levels, helping to reshape the system of technical education for Britain and providing genuine and sustainable impact at scale.

Arm says the T panel appointments are the latest step in the company’s strategic commitment to make a difference to education, both by enabling educators and students to learn with technology, and increasing the number of people with relevant technical and vocational skills for employment and entrepreneurship.

With 5,000 employees globally and 100 billion Arm-based chips shipped to date, along with an ecosystem of more than 1,100 partners, Cambridge-headquartered Arm is well-positioned to contribute to this effort, by inspiring, educating and training the next generation of engineers to benefit the industry, and to properly equip the wider global workforce for employment in the 21st century.

“There is a growing gap between what educational institutions are teaching, and the knowledge and skills required in today’s job market, especially in engineering disciplines.

“Failure to address this education/skills gap has serious socio-economic consequences,” said Benkrid, an ex-university lecturer. 

“This gap can only be bridged by a concerted collaborative effort between educational institutions, government and industry to fundamentally reform technical education in Britain.”

Simon Humphrey (above), who has made social mobility a key feature of Arm’s education strategy, added: “Serving on the the T panel to shape a qualification that works both for young people and for industry is an honour. 

“Arm has a business requirement for future talent and significant experience of inspiring young people into STEM careers. Both T levels and degree apprenticeships offer an alternative route to university for young people keen to pursue a career in technology.”

Through its education programmes and partnerships, Arm is driving quality education, a UN Sustainable Development Global Goal which leads to improved social mobility and inclusion. Arm is investing heavily in education with a thriving worldwide Arm University Program, inspiring young people through a comprehensive set of education, apprentice and graduate programmes, as well as work experience opportunities. Last year Arm began to offer Level 6 degree apprenticeship opportunities at its Cambridge and Manchester offices in the UK.

Paris aerospace heavyweight Thales has paid an undisclosed sum for Cambridge Consultants spin-out Aveillant – a pioneer of holographic radar technology ideal for drone surveillance.

Also a powerhouse in transport, defence and security, Thales had sales of €14.9 billion last year. The deal will accelerate Aveillant’s global commercial rollout and enhance surveillance of drones for Thales customers around critical infrastructure, such as airports worldwide.

Holographic radars perform very differently to standard surveillance techniques by establishing a permanent and complete picture of the total air space volume.

This technique is ideally adapted to the growing drone market – enabling the detection, tracking and classification of very small, moving targets such as UAVs.

The holographic radar is a software defined staring radar based on a modular and sclable hardware platform.

With this acquisition Thales, a pioneer itself of digital technologies and with a growing Cambridge UK presence, will be able to offer customers a new capability complementing its existing surveillance offerings.

Aveillant CEO David Crisp (pictured) said: “We are delighted to join a worldwide group the size of Thales, which will provide Aveillant with the resources and backing needed to accelerate its growth potential.”

Serge Adrian, senior VP for surface radar activities at Thales, added: “Our customers are increasingly faced with significant challenges to ensure the protection of large infrastructures, critical sites and airports.

“Aveillant’s holographic radar technology will provide a key building block for integrated solutions to provide this type of protection.”

Thales employs 64,000 people in 56 countries.

Global pharma giant GSK is integrating Owlstone Medical’s breath biopsy platform into its Phase II respiratory disease clinical trial of danirixin one of the novel drug candidates in its respiratory disease pipeline.

The trial will analyse the Cambridge company’s breath biomarkers to improve understanding of the treatment effects of a novel GSK pipeline drug candidate for COPD – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The deal is another key step in Owlstone Medical’s strategy to build a significant precision medicine business based on its platform which, by analysing biomarkers from breath, has the potential to generate data needed to improve clinical outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.

There is an important personalised medicine element to the partnership. 
GSK’s trial leveraging the Owlstone technology is designed to assess whether the right patient for the right treatment can be identified, as well as assessing the treatment effects of a novel drug for (COPD).
 
The platform will be used to capture Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in breath completely non-invasively, and analyse them with high sensitivity. The breath samples will be collected from patients participating in the clinical trial using Owlstone Medical’s CE-marked ReCIVA Breath Sampler, before shipping to the company’s clinical lab for analysis.

Each exhaled breath contains a rich spectrum of VOCs produced by the body’s metabolism that relate directly to disease activity, and when analysed can provide important insights for patient stratification. 

A patient’s VOC profile in breath can also be modified by introducing external factors including therapeutic interventions, which on analysis could also provide valuable information about the therapeutic effects of the drug being assessed.

Some 329 million people suffer from COPD worldwide while a further 235 million suffer from asthma.

Owlstone Medical has established the world’s first Breath Biopsy clinical laboratory, enabling clinical and pharmaceutical partners to access comprehensive VOC biomarker discovery services and identify breath biomarkers for a range of precision medicine applications.

Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, said “We are very pleased to work with GSK as they lead the way in using breath VOC profiling to better understand a new drug’s treatment effects and its mechanism. Our growing precision medicine business not only provides opportunities for near term revenue expansion, but also deepens the pipeline of applications for Breath Biopsy. 

“We believe that the non-invasive Breath Biopsy can rapidly establish a central role in a variety of precision medicine applications such as patient stratification and monitoring treatment response. 

“We intend to work with multiple pharmaceutical partners looking to optimise the health economic impact of their new medicines across a broad range of diseases by providing access to the data needed to ensure that the right therapy is given to the right patient at the right time.”

Dr Ruth Tal-Singer, VP, Medicine Development leader and GSK senior Fellow, for respiratory R & D at GSK, added: “As part of our efforts to identify the right patient for the right treatment, we are pleased to include Breath Biopsy for the first time in one of our clinical trials. 

“We hope that exploration of volatile compounds in breath will provide a tool to identify COPD patients who could benefit most from our medicines. We look forward to analysing the results generated from Breath Biopsy when available.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Billy Boyle

A team of former Cambridge Postdoc researchers have founded a biotechnology company, Cell-Free Technology, with the goal of building the first personal bio-computer.

The team hacked cells and extracted the billion year old processor, the tiny nano machinery, that is responsible for reading DNA and writing proteins, enzymes hormones and medicines. 

It is one of the few techniques available that can use DNA programs but is still completely safe and non-GMO. While games consoles use code, or electronic signals, to program, the team at cell-free use DNA just like a cartridge that allows you to plug-and-play. 

The eclectic team of four feature a designer, biochemist, physicist and a robotics engineer. Their dream has managed a few converts already and they have already raised $250K from Sean O’Sullivan Ventures (SOSV). Since then have been working tirelessly to get their first product ready for market.

Their story started in Cambridge, while CEO Dr Thomas Meany was researching quantum enhanced sensors in the Cavendish Laboratory as a Marie Curie Fellow. 

Thomas describes how biotechnology changed his life: “While in the Toshiba Cambridge Research Labs I worked in the healthcare division and we started learning about synthetic biology.

“Biology suddenly transformed into a computer science! So I left that job and started work in a Plant Science Department on a Wellcome Trust Interdisciplinary Fellowship!”

Chief creative officer Helene Steiner, formerly a postdoc researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge and Royal College of Art, explains: “Our challenge is integrating smart devices seamlessly with our lifestyles. The bio-computer we are developing is not stuck in the test tube but can be embedded in wearables and even smart textiles.”

The technology the team have created is cheap, easy to use and, most importantly, non-GMO. The team break open cells and remove the replication machineries, like the cell wall, so that all that is left is a biochemical soup containing bio-processors whose only job is to read DNA and make things. 

The vision is much more ambitious, however. Their goal is to build the personal bio-computer which, unlike conventional electronic wearables, truly interacts with our bodies, speaking the natural languages of hormones and pheromones.

Whether for medical or lifestyle reasons people want to interact with their environments in sophisticated ways. The smart devices of today can only make relatively crude measurements since they are simply not speaking the natural language of cells.

Cell-Free is not a new topic, in fact it has been popular in research labs since the 50s. But it took the team a long time to finally figure out how to break open cells, without damaging the inner workings, at scale.

CSO Ian McDermott, a protein engineer trained in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, describes his achievement: “It was a real eureka moment when we finally cracked it. The same thing farmers hate in their milk, bacteriophage infection, is the magic ingredient that makes our cells break open like Christmas crackers!”

The team’s first product “Bixels” is available on kickstarter and through their webpage: bixels.io

Prior to founding Cell-Free Technology  the team  – Dr Thomas Meany (CEO), Helene Steiner (CCO), Ian McDermott (CSO) and Brian Manning (CTO)  between them had 40 years of cross-disciplinary R & D experience and worked in MIT, the Royal College of Art, University of Cambridge, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Sydney, National University of Ireland, Tyndall Institute, Ecole Polytechnique, Toshiba, Microsoft, Gencell and Vaccinogen. 

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Thomas Meany

The Chancellor appeared in fine form as he delivered his second Budget speech. Prepared to crack a joke at the expense not just of the Opposition, but also his own Prime Minister, he said that he had his cough sweets at the ready.  And well he might need them; the latest figures from the OBR might say that the economy is starting to cough and splutter, writes Robert Leggett – Business & Corporate Tax partner, Ensors Chartered Accountants.

The real focus of the Budget appears to have been on housing, building an economy for a high tech future, and the environment.

In terms of housing, the exemption from Stamp Duty Land Tax for most first time buyers will be welcome, but property developers will need to wait and see the outcome of a review into the gap between the number of planning permissions and housing completions.  It is unclear what measures may be introduced in the future, but clearly there could be some sort of penalties for gaining planning permission and not proceeding to build.

On the future, there will be further investment in skills for the digital economy, as well as a review of employment status in our changing times.  With this emphasis on tech in mind, a welcome change will be that R&D reliefs under the large company “RDEC” scheme will be increased from 11 per cent to 12 per cent. 

Furthermore, the maximum limits for EIS/VCT investments in “knowledge intensive” companies will be doubled to £2m per individual, and £10m per company.  However, a new “risk to capital condition” will aim to restrict EIS & VCT investments to higher risk businesses.

Other measures relevant to business include:-

• Abolition of indexation allowance for corporate chargeable gains;
• More measures to assist with business rates, especially with the recent “staircase tax” ruling;
• Freezing of the VAT threshold for two years.

On the environment, the immediate impact for business will be in terms of diesel cars.  Less than two years ago, the “diesel supplement” on company car benefits in kind was due to be scrapped, but in the wake of the emissions scandal, we now find it will increase from 3 per cent to 4 per cent.  

VED rates will also increase for new diesel vehicles unable to meet certain stringent new tests.  The Chancellor clearly sees the future as electric, and will invest heavily in charging infrastructure, and also extend the 100 per cent first year capital allowances on zero emission good vehicles until 2021.

Let us just hope that we don’t run out of batteries!

A rising star of the DNA sequencing technology world is scaling rapidly from its Cambridge base.

Base4 Innovation has just closed a £5 million funding round – its largest to date – led by Longwall Ventures and has now raised £21.3m in total.

The company specialises in single molecule DNA sequencing. The new money will be used to expand the current team and increase lab space, facilitating the continued fast-paced development and automation of its technology.

The team at Base4 is developing a microdroplet based sequencing method that generates long reads from a single molecule of DNA without the need for initial amplification. 

As each base is released, it is encapsulated in its own aqueous microdroplet, where it is identified using fluorescence detection. Base4 says its proprietary chemistry has demonstrated better than 99.5 per cent per base single pass accuracy and with continued development is targeting even faster, higher signal-to-noise reactions. 

It has also demonstrated accurate, direct readout of methylated cytosine, and methylated adenine, says Base4. “No additional sample preparation is needed as the methylation state is read directly, with no bisulfite conversion,” the company added.

“Chromosomal rearrangements and epigenetic modifications are critical elements to understanding and predicting disease states, targeting drugs to individuals and assessing general health. 

“To detect these rearrangements and modifications, long read lengths and direct readout of methylation states are required. Base4 has the only technology capable of doing so at a scale and cost that will enable the testing of large populations. 

“This technology promises to be extremely disruptive, enabling the generation of cheaper, more accurate and much more meaningful sequencing data.”

Base4 is up to 32 employees and holds eight granted patents. The company benefits from the expertise of a significant number of PhD scientists, with backgrounds across physics, nanofabrication, optical detection, chemistry, molecular biology, microfluidics, electrochemistry and data science. 

“This multidisciplinary team provides the creative solutions needed to overcome the challenges of this exciting field,” said a company spokesperson.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Base4 Innovation CEO, Cameron Frayling

A unique £25 million innovation hothouse has been created in Cambridge by Chinese ICT star Huawei in collaboration with BT and the university.

In a hard-wired five-year collaboration the research nexus will focus on projects relating to photonics, digital and access network infrastructure and media technologies, alongside work aimed at enhancing the societal impact of communications technologies.

The project will bring together experts from the BT Labs, the Huawei R & D team at Cambridge Science Park and academics from the University of Cambridge to explore novel technologies that have the potential to unlock economic benefits for UK businesses and organisations – such as reducing the cost of network infrastructure and boosting operational performance. 

Work will also focus on the critical role that new technologies can play in delivering positive impacts for society – for example reducing inequality – particularly for groups excluded from digital transformation. The venture will address using ICT technologies to improve resilience of communities to climate change.

The funding is also geared to support longer-term, ‘blue skies’ research projects being progressed by postgraduate students at the university which are focused on generating benefits for industry and society at large. 

All these projects will be assessed by an Academic Advisory Board intended to comprise senior representatives from each of the parties. The university maintains strong links with the hi-tech business cluster of more than 4,700 companies which has sprung up around the Cambridge area. 

The new research and collaboration team – expected to be based at the university’s Maxwell Centre – will further harness the combined strengths of industry and the very best in academia to strengthen the area’s position as one of the leading technology hubs in Europe.

The new group is expected to start operation in the first half of 2018 with five to 10 researchers from BT and Huawei working alongside university collaborators.

Prof Stephen Toope, vice-chancellor at the University of Cambridge, said: “The world of telecommunications has advanced rapidly over the last two decades. However, there is still work to be done to improve the technologies we use on a daily basis and to ensure that they are long-lived. By working with BT and Huawei we will be able to demonstrate that the insights delivered through our research have a broad impact.”

BT group chief executive Gavin Patterson said the company currently invested around £500 million every year in R & D and over the last decade had been the third biggest contributor to UK R & D. 

He said: “BT’s fixed and mobile infrastructure is the engine of the UK economy so it is essential that we continue to innovate in this space to enhance the UK’s competitiveness on the world stage towards and through Brexit.

“We believe the best way of ensuring this country remains at the forefront of innovation is by combining the expertise and commercial focus of industry with the fantastic intellectual capital found at our world-leading universities. 

“Working together with Huawei and the University of Cambridge, we will discover the next generation of technologies which promise to deliver huge economic, social and cultural benefits for UK citizens.”

Ken Hu, deputy chairman and rotating CEO for Huawei, added:“Technology is changing the world faster than we have ever seen. It will bring many benefits to mankind and affect nearly every aspect of our lives. 

“Huawei will continue to invest and form partnerships to build out future infrastructure. We have over 80,000 people in research and development globally, working with customers, universities and industry bodies.

“No single organisation has all the answers. Partnership is the only way forward in a complex digital age. We look forward to working with BT and the University of Cambridge. Together, we will explore future technologies and help ensure a positive social impact.”

BT and Huawei have a long history of working with Cambridge on research projects. Researchers at the BT Labs in Adastral Park at Martlesham near Ipswich recently collaborated with the university’s Cavendish Lab on a project to assess the potential theoretical speeds that can be delivered over the UK’s access network infrastructure. Huawei and the university have been working together for seven years on range of successful research projects including media, communications and other technologies.

• Pictured above (left to right): BT CEO, Gavin Patterson, University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor, Prof Stephen Toope and Huawei CEO, Ken Hu

A unique £25 million innovation hothouse has been created in Cambridge by Chinese ICT star Huawei in collaboration with BT and the university.

In a hard-wired five-year collaboration the research nexus will focus on projects relating to photonics, digital and access network infrastructure and media technologies, alongside work aimed at enhancing the societal impact of communications technologies.

The project will bring together experts from the BT Labs, the Huawei R & D team at Cambridge Science Park and academics from the University of Cambridge to explore novel technologies that have the potential to unlock economic benefits for UK businesses and organisations – such as reducing the cost of network infrastructure and boosting operational performance. 

Work will also focus on the critical role that new technologies can play in delivering positive impacts for society – for example reducing inequality – particularly for groups excluded from digital transformation. The venture will address using ICT technologies to improve resilience of communities to climate change.

The funding is also geared to support longer-term, ‘blue skies’ research projects being progressed by postgraduate students at the university which are focused on generating benefits for industry and society at large. 

All these projects will be assessed by an Academic Advisory Board intended to comprise senior representatives from each of the parties. The university maintains strong links with the hi-tech business cluster of more than 4,700 companies which has sprung up around the Cambridge area. 

The new research and collaboration team – expected to be based at the university’s Maxwell Centre – will further harness the combined strengths of industry and the very best in academia to strengthen the area’s position as one of the leading technology hubs in Europe.

The new group is expected to start operation in the first half of 2018 with five to 10 researchers from BT and Huawei working alongside university collaborators.

Prof Stephen Toope, vice-chancellor at the University of Cambridge, said: “The world of telecommunications has advanced rapidly over the last two decades. However, there is still work to be done to improve the technologies we use on a daily basis and to ensure that they are long-lived. By working with BT and Huawei we will be able to demonstrate that the insights delivered through our research have a broad impact.”

BT group chief executive Gavin Patterson said the company currently invested around £500 million every year in R & D and over the last decade had been the third biggest contributor to UK R & D. 

He said: “BT’s fixed and mobile infrastructure is the engine of the UK economy so it is essential that we continue to innovate in this space to enhance the UK’s competitiveness on the world stage towards and through Brexit.

“We believe the best way of ensuring this country remains at the forefront of innovation is by combining the expertise and commercial focus of industry with the fantastic intellectual capital found at our world-leading universities. 

“Working together with Huawei and the University of Cambridge, we will discover the next generation of technologies which promise to deliver huge economic, social and cultural benefits for UK citizens.”

Ken Hu, deputy chairman and rotating CEO for Huawei, added:“Technology is changing the world faster than we have ever seen. It will bring many benefits to mankind and affect nearly every aspect of our lives. 

“Huawei will continue to invest and form partnerships to build out future infrastructure. We have over 80,000 people in research and development globally, working with customers, universities and industry bodies.

“No single organisation has all the answers. Partnership is the only way forward in a complex digital age. We look forward to working with BT and the University of Cambridge. Together, we will explore future technologies and help ensure a positive social impact.”

BT and Huawei have a long history of working with Cambridge on research projects. Researchers at the BT Labs in Adastral Park at Martlesham near Ipswich recently collaborated with the university’s Cavendish Lab on a project to assess the potential theoretical speeds that can be delivered over the UK’s access network infrastructure. Huawei and the university have been working together for seven years on range of successful research projects including media, communications and other technologies.

• Pictured above (left to right): BT CEO, Gavin Patterson, University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor, Prof Stephen Toope and Huawei CEO, Ken Hu

A Cambridge University spin-out has raised £350k seed cash to progress a game-changing new technology platform for generating human cell types.

Backed by a world-class investor team including BioMedTech influencers Jonathan Milner and Darrin Disley, startup Elpis BioMed is being tipped as a potential global great in the push for personalised medicines.

Elpis BioMed is applying its disruptive and proprietary direct cell reprogramming platform to produce pure, mature and highly consistent batches of human cell types for research, toxicology and drug development.
The seed funding will allow the business to bring its human cell products and services to market.

The investor team is led by Jonathan Milner, with co-investments from Darrin Disley, Weslie Janeway and Nikolaus Starzacher. 

The funds will directly be used to grow the company’s catalogue of off-the-shelf human cell type products and expand its service offerings, marking its first step towards more complex products, including human organ-on-chip models, and cell-based therapies.

The use of human cells is becoming increasingly important in the context of research, toxicology, and drug discovery. Differences between commonly used cell and animal models and human biology contribute to high attrition rates at late stages of drug development.

Primary human cells remain restricted with respect to availability and lack consistency. Advances in human stem cell technology promised to increase the options available.

However, the elaborate culture protocols required for traditional ‘directed differentiation’ of stem cells into desired target cells result in limited scalability and considerable batch-to-batch variation, often yielding immature, foetal-like cells with a fundamentally different phenotype to that of mature cells in the human body.

Elpis’ proprietary cell reprogramming platform ‘OPTi-OX’ (optimised, inducible over-expression), overcomes the hurdles of availability, consistency, and maturity. It enables highly controlled, efficient, and scalable direct reprogramming of human stem cells into homogeneous target cell populations with minimal batch-to-batch variation. 

Elpis’ manufacturing approach reduces the time required to generate desired cell types from months to days and offers a reliable source of somatic human cell types that is amenable to high-throughput applications.

Elpis’ technology is already generating skeletal muscle cells, blood precursors, neuronal (cortical neurons) and glial cells. The company plans to expand its product offerings to human cells with distinct genetic backgrounds, e.g. from healthy and patient donors, as well as provide bespoke cells with synthetic mutations or gene insertions that meet specific research requirements.

It also offers strategic consulting services for tailored implementation of human cell assays in target validation, drug discovery, and screening processes.

Elpis is actively encouraging partnerships and joint ventures for generating novel cell types, complex in vitro models, such as 3D or organ-on-chip systems, and developing its cells for future therapeutic and personalised medicine approaches.

Elpis’ proprietary OPTi-OX platform was developed at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and published in Stem Cell Reports. 

The company was founded by Dr Mark Kotter, a clinician scientist at the University of Cambridge leading a translational research group with a focus on stem cells, human disease modelling, and regenerative medicine trials for cervical myelopathy, and Dr Gordana Apic, a serial entrepreneur in life science businesses.

Dr Kotter, scientific founder and CEO of Elpis said: “Elpis’ near-term goal is to allow every scientist to base their work on human cells, without the need of having particular expertise in stem cell biology. In the long term, we would like to develop our technology for clinical application.”

Jonathan Milner, co-founder and deputy chairman of Abcam added: “I’m thrilled to be backing Mark Kotter and his team at Elpis BioMed. Elpis’ approach to making human cells is truly disruptive – it reduces manufacturing time and at the same time increases purity by an order of magnitude. But what is most important: it allows for unprecedented levels of consistency and minimal batch-to-batch variability.”

Broadcom and Qualcomm, the US technology giants with major operations in Cambridge, are set for a battle of the boards after the former’s $130 billion takeover offer was rejected. 

Broadcom looked set to turn the bid hostile after Qualcomm directors unanimously rejected a price that would be an all-time record for the technology sector.

Qualcomm directors said the bid seriously undervalued the business. Broadcom said it remained fully committed to doing a deal.

Seasoned industry observers were readying themselves for an all-out Broadcom assault.

Broadcom believes it has already won the battle for the hearts, minds and wallets of Qualcomm shareholders and look ready to attempt to replace hostile Qualcomm board members with more amenable candidates.

Qualcomm also raised the potential obstacle of regulatory issues – not least in the key market of China – that could potentially stall or even torpedo such a takeover. But this did not seem to alter Broadcom’s stride.

Broadcom is based locally at Cambridge Science Park while Qualcomm already had a presence in the cluster before acquiring CSR and Nujira and consoliidating at Cambridge Business Park.

Cambridge and US chip champions Arm and Intel also await developments with interest as any Broadcom acquisition of Qualcomm would create the largest supplier of chips to the wireless industry.

With Broadcom set to redomicile and change the parent company of the corporate group from Singapore to a US corporation, the Qualcomm scalp is considered a key statement of intent. But Qualcomm will not go quietly. Broadcom is offering $70 a share. Factored in is $25 billion of net debt, giving effect to Qualcomm’s pending acquisition of NXP on its currently disclosed terms.

If Broadcom does succeed in winning Qualcomm, technology industry market watchers are suggesting that Japanese corporation SoftBank might start looking over its shoulder at Intel which might shift its position on Arm, the world’s leading superchip architect, for which it paid $32bn.

One of its strongest competitors in the processor market, Intel will become reinvigorated in order to combat a newly formed Broadcom-Qualcomm powerhouse with their Arm-based Snapdragon processors. 

Intel has already been sensitised by Qualcomm and Microsoft who have been gearing up to port Windows to Arm-based chips thus providing Intel with extra competition in the PC market. 

Two major tech investors have told Business Weekly that SoftBank might  consider flipping Arm.

A major Chinese corporation in the segment is also said to be watching the situation closely in case Arm should become available – although such a scenario would be some way in the distance and the asking price would blow even the proposed Broadcom record outlay for Qualcomm into the stratosphere.