British chip designer Arm will begin trading on Wall Street today in what is expected to be the biggest US public listing of the year.

The semiconductor firm has secured enough backing from investors to hit the top end of its £37.60 to £40.80 per share price range, which would value Arm at more than £40billion.

Just 10 per cent of shares in the Cambridge-based company are scheduled to start trading in New York today, raising about £4billion for Japanese owner SoftBank, which will retain a 90 per cent stake.

The company reportedly closed its order book early on Tuesday, indicating strong demand for the shares, most of which has come from institutional investors and tech giants such as Apple, Nvidia, Google, Intel and Samsung Electronics. 

Marketing efforts for the Initial Public Offering have been targeted at institutional investors, leaving retail savers to buy shares at potentially higher prices once they begin trading, according to Reuters.

Float: Arm has secured enough backing from investors to hit the top end of its £37.60 to £40.80 per share price range, which would value Arm at more than £40bn

Susannah Streeter, head of markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘The first chance UK investors will get to snap up a slice of the company will be when the company starts trading on the NYSE and so they should be prepared for volatility that often can hit stocks after a launch onto the stock market.

‘Retail investors hoping for a front seat on Arm’s journey ahead should be mindful that the future AI landscape is hard to map.’

Arm’s core business is designing chips for smartphones – it has a 99pc share of the mobile phone market – and it is hoping to expand its reach in cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

The British firm’s decision to list in the US was a blow for the London Stock Exchange.

The company was founded in Cambridge in 1990 and was part of the FTSE 100 when it was publicly listed in London and New York between 1998 and 2016, before it was taken private by SoftBank.

The Japanese investor had planned to sell Arm to rival US chip firm Nvidia in 2020 but the £31billion deal fell apart after hitting regulatory hurdles. 

After the deal failed, UK politicians lobbied SoftBank to have a dual listing in London as well as the New York Stock Exchange. But SoftBank snubbed the City in March, saying New York was the ‘best path forward’.

US listings have become increasingly popular tech entrepreneurs, allowing them to reach higher valuations.

Streeter added: ‘Arm was very much seen as a British success story, but owner SoftBank is pulling no sentimental punches here and wants the best bang for its buck.’

The City suffered a further setback on Tuesday as packaging giant Smurfit Kappa said it would move its premium listing from London to New York as part of a merger with US firm WestRock, meaning it will leave the FTSE 100 index.

Building supplier CRH has also announced plans to switch its primary listing to New York later this month and plumbing supplier Ferguson shifted its listing to the US last year.

Shares in US chipmaker Nvidia hit an all-time high last night as it cashed in on the artificial intelligence (AI) boom taking Wall Street by storm.

The stock surged after it revealed a blockbuster second quarter – smashing expectations and showing that the AI craze was here to stay.

Nvidia has been one of the winners of the explosion of AI, with its chips playing a vital role in ChatGPT, which has shifted the tech from fringe topic to a household name.

In a bumper set of results on Wednesday night, Nvidia said revenues more than doubled to £10.6billion in the three months to the end of June, and would climb to £13billion in the current quarter, a rise of around 170 per cent compared to the same time last year.

The business also posted an 843 per cent jump in its quarterly profits to £4.9billion.

The figures sent the shares soaring more than 6 per cent in New York yesterday to over $500 apiece for the first time.

Although the gains eased throughout the day’s trading, the shares have more than tripled this year alone, adding £700billion to Nvidia’s value.

That is around the same as the six biggest companies on the FTSE 100 are worth combined – from AstraZeneca and HSBC to Shell and BP as well as Diageo and Unilever.

The meteoric growth has handed a windfall to Nvidia’s founder and chief executive Jensen Huang, whose own wealth has ballooned by as much as £25billion so far this year. He owns a 3.5 per cent stake, worth £33billion.

Founded in 1993, the story of the world’s most valuable chip maker started at a Silicon Valley diner, with Huang and two other engineers, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. Uncertain exactly what their business would look like, their initial strategy was to place early bets on markets that barely existed at the time, starting out with PC gaming and graphics processing.

This proved a major success, with their graphics processing unit now essential in the world of gaming in popular titles such as Call of Duty.

It also enjoyed some hype during the launch of the ‘metaverse’, the virtual reality pushed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg when he rebranded the company as Meta in 2021.

But its most recent bet in the world of AI has proved its most lucrative, making it the first semiconductor company to rack up a $1trillion market valuation in May.

It now means Nvidia, whose market cap is around $1.2trillion (£950m), is now a firm member of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ alongside fellow American corporate giants Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Tesla.

And analysts are confident that its spot in this elite club will not be short-lived.

Dan Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, said: ‘Nvidia’s guidance was a ‘drop the mic’ moment as investors now recognise this AI demand story is as real as any tech trend we have seen in the last 30 years. It is only comparable to the internet in 1995 and Apple’s iPhone launch in 2007.’

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said: ‘Confidence is a funny thing. Without it markets limp along as investors shun risk and double down on perceived safe havens. With it sectors soar, and that’s exactly what happened after Nvidia proved the AI phenomena is no flash in the pan.’

But it’s not just analysts who are bullish about Nvidia.

Windfall: Nvidia’s founder and chief executive Jensen Huang

‘A new computing era has begun. Companies worldwide are transitioning from general-purpose to accelerated computing and generative AI,’ said Huang, who is known for his black leather jackets and a tattoo that looks like the Nvidia logo.

‘We have excellent visibility through the year and into next year,’ he added. ‘I think this is not a near-term thing, this is a long-term industry transition.’

And to truly underline this point, the company has said that it would buy back another £20billion of its shares, a move most firms make when leadership thinks the company is undervalued.

The company said it to ramp up production of its hardware into next year, appearing to silence doubts about whether this diner coffee-fuelled, start-up turned chip giant will keep growing.

There were chaotic scenes at the BRICS conference in South Africa when a man thought to be Xi Jinping‘s translator was body-slammed by security staff as he rushed to the Chinese President’s side.

President Xi walked the red carpet at the event in Johannesburg on Wednesday where he was greeted by officials before the plenary conference session began.

As he entered the main area of the venue, a Chinese official lurched forward in an apparent attempt to catch up with his boss. 

Security guards became suspicious and immediately jumped on the man, shoving him against the wall with full force before flinging the doors closed to stop him from following Xi inside.

The president repeatedly glanced back dumbfounded, possibly wondering what the commotion was about or questioning the whereabouts of his official.

President Xi walked the red carpet at the event in Johannesburg on Wednesday where he was greeted by officials before the conference session began

The president repeatedly glanced back dumbfounded, possibly wondering what the commotion was about or questioning the whereabouts of his official

Xi tried to maintain his composure as the bizarre episode unfolded, continuing to walk down the carpet despite the dramatic events going on just behind him

Xi tried to maintain his composure as the bizarre episode unfolded, continuing to walk down the carpet despite the dramatic events going on just behind him. 

The footage went viral online as the BRICS countries – a bloc which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – met for their annual summit.

They agreed the admission of six new members, with Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates set to join the anti-Western alliance from January 1.

The footage went viral online as the BRICS countries – a bloc which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – met to for their annual summit

‘This membership expansion is historic,’ said Xi Jinping, whose nation is the most powerful in the group of large and populous non-Western economies.

‘The expansion is also a new starting point for BRICS cooperation. It will bring new vigour to the BRICS cooperation mechanism and further strengthen the force for world peace and development’.

It comes after President Xi unexpectedly skipped a speech at the business forum on Tuesday, with no reason given for his absence. 

A stressed bull suffered incurable catastrophic injuries after leaping over a wall with a sheer drop behind it during a Spanish festival.

The 91-stone (580 kilograms) animal, called Vicioso, was sedated before being put to sleep after vets concluded nothing could be done to save it.

Dramatic footage showed the bull jumping 50ft into the abyss after it was let loose to charge at crowds during the Bou de les Penyes festival in the Valencian municipality of Ontinyent on Saturday.

Revelers gasped and put their hands to their heads in shock when the animal went over the edge of the low stone wall without seeing what lay behind it.

The animal crash-landed on the hard edge of a river bed near a bridge a few feet upstream.

Sickening footage captured the moment a bull charged over a wall and plunged to its death in Spain. The 91-stone (580 kilograms) animal, called Vicioso, was sedated before being put to sleep after vets concluded nothing could be done to save it

Vicioso was the second bull to appear during the fourth day of the bullfighting and running festivities.

All was proceeding as normal until the animal slipped free from his rope and ran along the curved edge of a road at a high speed.

Upon reaching the bend in the road that crosses the town’s Pont Vell bridge, without slowing down, the powerful animal leapt clean over the parapet of the bridge, which stands just over half a metre high. 

‘These are unexpected accidents’, said Vicioso’s owners. ‘With brave bulls, you never know how they are going to react or behave. In this case there was a low wall, and he came out very strongly. It is clear that he saw it as an opening’. 

Saturday’s incident led to a suspension of the festivities.

German Zaragoza, who had helped organise them, said: ‘This was a tragic accident of the sort that happen rarely.

‘The bull was coming down the slope very fast and jumped without seeing what was behind the wall.

‘The veterinary service acted very quickly to sedate it.’

A spokesman for the livestock farm which had raised Vicioso added: ‘With fighting bulls like these you never know how they’re going to react or behave.

‘In this case there was a low barrier, it went off very fast, and obviously it saw a clearing in the crowd.’

But critic Marco Pereira raged: ‘This is pure and utter barbarianism.

‘There’s no tradition here, it’s idiocy.’

Another enraged local said: ‘It’s shameful that people still play with animals.’

An 82-year-old man had to be hospitalised after being tossed in the air by a bull in Ontinyent last December. Initial reports at the time said he had suffered bad injuries but medics later confirmed the animal’s horns had pads on them which saved the pensioner’s life.

Researcher Rosa Fernandez found last year 34.7 per cent of the Spanish population supported festivities involving bulls and wanted to keep them, 44.1 per cent wanted them banned and 21.2 per cent were against them but did not want them banned.

THIS is the traumatic moment a stressed bull suffers catastrophic injuries vets decided it could not recover from after leaping from a bridge when it was let loose to charge at crowds during a Spanish festival

Terrified Bull leaps over a bridge in Ontinyent on Saturday

Upon reaching the bend in the road that crosses the town’s Pont Vell bridge, without slowing down, the powerful animal leapt clean over the parapet of the bridge, which stands just over half a metre high

All was proceeding as normal until the animal slipped free from his rope and ran along the curved edge of a road at a high speed

Saturday’s incident led to a suspension of the festivities