Busy week in maker biz and industry news … SoftBank is purchasing ARM for $32 BILLION, one of the largest acquisitions in tech. Perviously SoftBank did a buyout of USA based Sprint for $21 billion.

Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank:

We have long admired ARM as a world-renowned and highly respected technology company that is by some distance the market-leader in its field. ARM will be an excellent strategic fit within the SoftBank group as we invest to capture the very significant opportunities provided by the “Internet of Things”.

This investment also marks our strong commitment to the U.K. and the competitive advantage provided by the deep pool of science and technology talent in Cambridge. As an integral part of the transaction, we intend to at least double the number of employees employed by ARM in the UK over the next five years.

SoftBank intends to invest in ARM, support its management team, accelerate its strategy and allow it to fully realise its potential beyond what is possible as a publicly listed company.  It is also intended that ARM will remain an independent business within SoftBank, and continue to be headquartered in Cambridge, U.K..

This is one of the most important acquisitions we have ever made, and I expect ARM to be a key pillar of SoftBank’s growth strategy going forward.

Our post here on Adafruit’s maker biz section and here’s some speculation from I, Cringely (says ARM might become a player and make chips as a fabless semiconductor company).