Taiwanese chip design giant MediaTek is developing an Arm-based PC chip that will run Microsoft’s Windows operating system, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Last month, Microsoft unveiled a new generation of laptops that feature chips designed with Arm Holdings’ technology, providing enough horsepower to run artificial intelligence applications that executives said are the future of consumer computing. The MediaTek chip is aimed at this effort.
The software company’s plans take aim at Apple, which has released its own Arm-based chips for Macs for about four years. And Microsoft’s decision to optimize Windows for Arm could threaten Intel’s long-standing dominance of the PC market.
MediaTek and Microsoft declined to comment.
Taiwan-listed MediaTek shares rose 2.4 percent on Wednesday, outperforming the broader index’s 1.2 percent rise.
The MediaTek PC chip is due to launch late next year after Qualcomm’s exclusive contract to supply chips for notebook computers expires, the two people said. The chip is based on Arm’s off-the-shelf designs, which can significantly speed up development because less design work is required by using off-the-shelf, tested chip components.
It was not immediately clear whether Microsoft approved MediaTek’s PC chip for the Copilot+ Windows program.
Arm executives said one of its customers used off-the-shelf components to build a chip in about nine months for a design that was already finished, which MediaTek did not. For experienced chip design companies, advanced chips typically take well over a year to build and test, depending on complexity.
In 2016, Microsoft chose Qualcomm to lead the move of the Windows operating system to Arm’s core processor architecture, which has long powered smartphones and their small batteries. Microsoft granted Qualcomm an exclusivity deal to develop Windows-based Arm-compatible chips until 2024, Reuters reported last year.
With Qualcomm’s exclusivity deal with Microsoft expiring, other designers have decided to build chips to help power Microsoft’s latest attempt at using the Arm design. For decades, Windows machines relied on chip architectures made by Advanced Micro Devices and Intel.
Nvidia and AMD are working on an Arm design for Windows machines, Reuters reported last year. Nvidia’s push for its PC chip includes help from MediaTek, according to a person familiar with the matter. MediaTek’s PC chip efforts are separate from its collaboration with Nvidia, the two people said.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
