The Everything Blueprint

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What to expect

A gripping look at the rise of the microchip and the British tech company caught in the middle of the global battle for dominance.

A big source of tension between the US and China at the moment is technology. And one very small component is now at the centre of this battle for global dominance: the microchip. Controlling chip manufacturing in the 21st century may well prove to be like controlling the oil supply in the 20th. The country that controls this manufacturing can throttle the military and economic power of others.

At the heart of this battle is ARM Holdings.

Founded in Cambridge in 1990, Arm specialises in microprocessors, and dominates the global smartphone market (their designs feature in 95% of all mobile phones globally). It's a real British tech success story. But it's currently caught in the middle of a war for total control on microchips because whoever controls ARM, controls microchips.

The Everything Blueprint describes the titanic power struggle for control of the microchip - told through the story of a British start up that has found itself in the middle. The novel alternates between telling the rise of the Arm and the battle for the microchip to reveal just how important this company is

(P) 2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

  • ‘This is a gripping and inspiring read. The Everything Blueprint reveals how a British technology company fought to become a global one – and achieved this thanks to a powerful combination of homegrown talent, international collaboration between brilliant people, and dogged ambition. Arm’s success is proof that in today’s connected world it is vital to go abroad to achieve scale. The key to this story is a fierce determination to be No. 1 – and never giving into complacency.’ Sir James Dyson, British inventor, industrial designer and entrepreneur

  • ‘The Everything Blueprint provides the hidden history of the most important company most people have never heard of. We all rely on Arm’s chip technology but James Ashton provides a dramatic account of where Arm came from-and how this company will shape the future of computing and artificial intelligence. 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

  • ‘This is an engrossing history of the most important company to emerge in the UK in the last 40 years and how it fits in to the world’s most vital industry. It’s also a sobering reminder that if we are careless about Arm’s future we can give up on our aspirations to be a leading tech nation.’ Rory Cellan-Jones, former BBC technology correspondent and author of Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era

  • ‘James Ashton weaves his way through the intricate geopolitics of the semiconductor industry with an insider’s view of Arm’s remarkable rise. From Silicon Valley to Taiwan via Cambridge, this book provides an essential account of a vital industry, and, in an era infused with artificial intelligence, reminds us that technology remains inherently human.’ Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock and co-founder of LinkedIn

  • ‘Swaffham, Bulbeck in England is not writ as large in the lore of the chip industry as California’s Mountain View (birthplace of Intel) and Sunnyvale (birthplace of nVidia), or Taiwan’s Hsinchu, the cradle of TSMC. But this village should be in the register because that’s where the computer world first encountered ARM, a company whose tale James Ashton deftly weaves into a tapestry stretching from the first transistor to chatGPT.’ Sir Michael Moritz, author of Return of the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs, the Creation of Apple, and How it Changed the World

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