TOKYO -- Arm Holdings, a British chip-design subsidiary of SoftBank Group, has decided to buy Treasure Data, a data-management technology developer based in California, for about $600 million.

The planned purchase is aimed at speeding up new business development by better utilizing the group's data assets.

SoftBank aims to step up competition against U.S. IT giants, including Google and Facebook, through increased investment in data-related companies.

Arm plans to announce the purchase plan as early as mid-August.

Treasure Data was founded by Japanese engineers who originally worked for a company that gave birth to Preferred Networks, a prominent Japanese artificial intelligence startup.

The seven-year-old Silicon Valley startup gets funding from Yahoo co-founder and investor Jerry Yang and Bill Tai, a noted venture capitalist.

Treasure Data provides a service that supports the efficient management of large amounts of continuously generated data. This includes a wide range of data sources, from consumer web-browsing histories, used for corporate ads and sales promotion, to readings from sensors attached to wind turbines.

The firm has over 300 clients, mainly in Japan and the U.S.

Arm aims to use Treasure Data's technology to process large amounts of data generated by devices with Arm chips installed, in developing new technologies. Specifically, the U.K. company aims to expand the usage of chips to expand the overall market.