Analog Devices nears $1.5B cash deal for AI chip maker Empower

Analog Devices Inc. is closing in on a roughly $1.5 billion all-cash acquisition of Empower Semiconductor, a privately held power-management chip specialist based in Milpitas, California. According to a Bloomberg report published Tuesday, the two companies are in advanced negotiations, with an official announcement potentially arriving as soon as the same day.

Empower Semiconductor has carved out a niche in vertical-power-delivery technology, a critical component for modern data centers. The company’s designs can place more than 3,000 amps of current directly beneath a GPU, a capability that addresses one of the most pressing challenges in high-performance computing: delivering enormous power efficiently and without bottlenecking performance.

For Analog Devices, this move would represent a significant strategic bet on the AI hardware ecosystem. As artificial intelligence workloads demand ever more power from processors, the ability to manage that power at the point of consumption has become a key competitive advantage. Acquiring Empower would give Analog Devices a direct line into the infrastructure powering the largest AI clusters, potentially strengthening its position against rivals in the analog and mixed-signal semiconductor space.

The deal underscores a broader trend in the chip industry, where established players are aggressively acquiring startups that solve specific, high-value problems in the AI supply chain. By paying a premium for Empower’s technology, Analog Devices is betting that the power-delivery bottleneck will only grow more acute as AI models scale.

Neither company has publicly commented on the reported talks. If finalized, the transaction would mark one of the larger semiconductor acquisitions of the year, reflecting the intense demand for specialized hardware that can keep pace with the energy and performance requirements of next-generation AI systems.