By Charlie Conchie British chipmaker Graphcore has been snapped up by Softbank as the Japanese investment firm accelerates its push into artificial intelligence. Once talked up as a potential rival to Nvidia, Graphcore has struggled to secure the investment needed to compete in recent years and was forced to slash its headcount last year and scale back its operations in Norway, Japan and South Korea. However, speaking at a media briefing on Thursday, cofounder and CEO Nigel Toon said the Softbank deal now “marked a level of investment that is utterly massive” for the company. “Graphcore, as a …