There could be a wild, sci-fi reason that SoftBank is spending 32 billion to buy mobile chip designer ARM Holdings

On the one hand, it makes perfect sense why the Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank would want to buy ARM Holdings, the chip designer that pretty much owns the mobile market. SoftBank offered 17 a share in cash for ARM (about 32 billion). That was 43% more than ARM's closing share price on Friday and 41% more than ARM's all-time-high closing share price. This could be the largest-ever tech acquisition of a European company. ARM helped propel the mobile device market forward by crafting designs for low-power microchips.