British tech champion snapped up by US rival for £1.8bn
A semiconductor specialist is set to become the latest British company to quit the London stock market after agreeing to a $2.4bn (£1.8bn) takeover by an American rival.
Alphawave IP Group said on Monday it was recommending shareholders to vote for a sale to US chip giant Qualcomm.
The deal would mean the company, which only floated on the London Stock Exchange four years ago, would cease to be listed.
It is a fresh blow to the City just days after Wise, the British financial technology champion, announced it was moving its main listing to New York.
The timing of both moves is embarrassing for the City, coming as the capital hosts the annual London Tech Week conference with Baroness Gustafsson, the investment minister, and Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, both due to speak.
Qualcomm said it was buying Alphawave to aid its expansion into data centres, which are becoming increasingly important in the race to develop artificial intelligence (AI) software.
Alphawave is a specialist in technologies that 'drive faster, more reliable data transfer with higher performance and lower power consumption', a joint statement by the companies said.
This means its products 'form a part of the core infrastructure enabling next-generation services in a wide array of high growth applications, including data centres, AI, data networking and data storage'.
Silicon Valley giants such as OpenAI, Google and Amazon are racing to acquire more data centre capacity to help train their AI programmes.
Tony Pialis, president and chief executive of Alphawave, said: 'Qualcomm's acquisition of Alphawave represents a significant milestone for us and an opportunity for our business to join forces with a respected industry leader and drive value to our customers.
'By combining our resources and expertise, we will be well-positioned to expand our product offerings, reach a broader customer base, and enhance our technological capabilities.
'Together, we will unlock new opportunities for growth, drive innovation, and create a leading player in AI compute and connectivity solutions.
'For our shareholders, the Alphawave board is pleased that Qualcomm's offer provides an opportunity to realise compelling value for their shares.'
Cristiano Amon, president and chief executive of Qualcomm, added: 'Qualcomm's advanced custom processors are a natural fit for data centre workloads.
'The combined teams share the goal of building advanced technology solutions and enabling next-level connected computing performance across a wide array of high growth areas, including data centre infrastructure.'
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