Softbank owns a majority stake in Arm. Arm-based chips dominate the smartphone market, and they're starting to compete with Intel in PCs and servers as well. Arm doesn't sell chips directly, instead licensing its designs and intellectual property to companies including Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and many others.

President Donald Trump said that Intel has agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% stake in its business.

But should such a deal move ahead, it would be a highly unusual step — it would mark an escalation in the Trump administration's efforts to push chipmakers to manufacture in the United States, and a n...