The Everything Blueprint: Processing Power, Politics, and the Microchip Design That Conquered the World

A gripping and inspiring read.’ Sir James Dyson

’A revealing and insightful biography of the company whose blueprints define the digital world.’ Chris Miller, author of CHIP WAR: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology
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One tiny device lies at the heart of the world’s relentless technological advance: the microchip. Today, these slivers of silicon are essential to running just about any machine, from household devices and factory production lines to smartphones and cutting-edge weaponry.

At the centre of billions of these chips is a blueprint created and nurtured by a single company: Arm.

Founded in Cambridge in 1990, Arm’s designs have been used an astonishing 250 billion times and counting. The UK’s high-tech crown jewel is an indispensable part of a global supply chain driven by American brains and Asian manufacturing brawn that has become the source of rising geopolitical tension.

With exclusive interviews and exhaustive research, The Everything Blueprint tells the story of Arm, from humble beginnings to its pivotal role in the mobile phone revolution and now supplying data centres, cars and the supercomputers that harness artificial intelligence.

It explores the company’s enduring relationship with Apple and numerous other tech titans, plus its multi-billion-pound sale to the one-time richest man in the world, Japan’s Masayoshi Son.

The Everything Blueprint details the titanic power struggle for control of the microchip, through the eyes of a unique British enterprise that has found itself in the middle of that battle.
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James Ashton writes about business, technology, economics and leadership. He has been Executive Editor and City Editor of the London Evening Standard and Independent titles and City Editor of the Sunday Times. He is chief executive of the Quoted Companies Alliance, a members’ organisation which champions London’s stock market-listed growth businesses.

James is the author of two previous business books: The Nine Types of Leader (Kogan Page) and FTSE: The Inside Story (Nicholas Brealey, co-written with FTSE founder Mark Makepeace).

Born in West Yorkshire, he was educated at the University of St Andrews and City University in London and lives in Surrey with his wife and daughter.