Analog Devices Near $1.5bn Cash Deal for Empower Semiconductor’s AI Power Chips
May 19, 2026 – 7:11 am
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The Milpitas-based vertical-power-delivery firm puts more than 3,000 amps of current directly under the GPU. The deal could be announced as soon as Tuesday.
Analog Devices is in advanced talks to acquire Empower Semiconductor, the closely held Californian power-management chip company, for $1.5bn in cash, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. A transaction could be announced as soon as Tuesday, US time.
Neither company has publicly confirmed the discussions on the record.
What Empower makes is the operationally critical piece behind the AI data-centre buildout. The Milpitas-based company, founded in 2014, designs integrated voltage regulators that sit directly under the GPU or other AI accelerator and deliver more than 3,000 amps of current up through the PCB rather than across it.
The technical claim that has carried Empower into this category is straightforward. Placing the voltage regulator directly under the accelerator, rather than alongside it, can save approximately 20% of total system power on Empower’s published estimates, by eliminating the resistive losses incurred when 3,000-amp currents are routed laterally.
For a hyperscaler running tens of gigawatts of AI compute across a multi-year capex cycle, the implied operational saving is large enough to make the underlying voltage-regulator IP a strategic asset rather than a commoditised component.
Empower closed a $140m+ Series D in late 2024, led by Fidelity Management & Research with participation from Maverick Silicon, CapitalG, Atreides Management, Socratic Partners, Walden Catalyst Ventures, Knollwood and an Abu Dhabi Investment Authority subsidiary.
The $1.5bn price tag on the rumoured Analog Devices deal represents a meaningful step up from that round and reflects the rerating that hyperscaler-aligned AI-power suppliers have experienced through the spring.
Analog Devices, the New York Stock Exchange-listed analogue and mixed-signal incumbent with a ~$140bn market capitalisation, has spent the past two years acquiring its way into the AI-infrastructure thesis. Empower would slot into ADI’s power-management division alongside its existing voltage-regulation portfolio, with the strategic logic being that the bidder is buying VPD intellectual property and design talent rather than a commoditised manufacturing capacity.
Whether ADI plans to integrate Empower’s design into its existing roadmap or run the acquired business as a standalone unit serving hyperscaler customers will be the visible structural detail when the deal closes.