According to ARM chief executive Rene Haas, the firm is now "consciously deciding to invest more heavily in the possibility of going beyond designs and building chiplets or other possible solutions."

Based on this it would seem ARM fancies making the whole stack including processors, boards, and full systems.

This move is ambitious, given that ARM’s bread and butter has always been licensing IP to punters like Nvidia and AMD. Moving from design house to hardware maker is expensive and fraught with risk. It means choosing fabs, burning cash on R&D, and figuring out how to mass-produce something that doesn’t catch fire.

Given that ARM’s quarterly numbers are as inspiring as a cold Weetabix, this kind of leap could either be visionary or a spectacular bellyflop. Especially if it alienates current customers who don’t fancy competition from their supplier.

ARM’s been basking in the glow of Big Tech’s affection lately, particularly in mobile, where it’s become the de facto standard. The firm reckons more than half of data centre CPUs will be ARM-based eventually, which sounds optimistic but not entirely detached from reality.

It helps that ARM has SoftBank cash backing its ambitions. Masayoshi Son isn’t exactly known for playing it safe and has sunk billions into more hair-brained ventures. So if anyone’s going to bankroll ARM’s tilt at becoming the next Chipzilla, it’s him.

Still, by building its own chips, ARM risks biting the hand that’s been feeding it for years. Nvidia might not be thrilled to see its IP supplier turn into a rival. And while ARM has the experience and market presence to launch something credible, the leap from licensing to manufacturing is littered with the corpses of companies who thought it looked easy.