It may go a bit beyond “move over”, it might be a “good night Intel”.
Intel developed the x86 instruction set by the late 1970s. By 1982 when IBM developed the PC, they forced Intel to license the x86 to other manufacturers because they didn’t want to rely on a single CPU supplier, this allowed AMD to start making x86 CPUs. At some point there were 10+ CPU makers, but Intel realized this licensing deal to others was leaving money on the table, so Intel tried to eliminate the competition by the late 1908s. AMD was able to reverse-engineer the x86 architecture and keep doing CPUs. The next chapter is almost a decade of legal battles between Intel and AMD, they signed peace by 1995. AMD developed first a successful x86-64 architecture, AMD needed Intel’s IP and Intel needed AMD’s IP to stay competitive. So, they got married and a CPU duopoly emerged in the early 2000s.
It’s been 20+ years since since Intel and AMD have the PC market in choke hold. I have used computers with Intel or AMD CPUs since…30 years ago (damn!!!).
Apple used their cash pile to develop an alternative to Intel and AMD CPUs with ARM CPUs. They presented a MacBook Air with that in 2020, a efficient CPU that required no fan, thus long battery life.
ARM CPUs are great. Low power consumption, lots of operations. Other hardware makers beyond Apple have launched ARM laptops with Windows, but the software is not compiled for ARM, it’s emulated, thus slow. It was kind of a software trap because customers did not buy laptops with ARM CPU because there was a software performance penalty at some point. Little by little software makers started releasing software for ARM. But this was for work, no games.
I got an ARM laptop from Asus earlier this year for my wife. Basically, all software was made for ARM. I have to check the other thread (ARM) for 1 or 2 exceptions. Great OLED screen, long battery life. The laptop is 1 kilo and there’s no need to carry the charger during the day.
And we arrive to yesterday. Mind the AI blabla, the big announcement from Nvidia is using the ARM architecture. The nicest Windows laptops of the next generation will have an Nvidia CPU, not Intel, not AMD. Microsoft and Nvidia used their cash to support software makers so it’s natively compiled for ARM architecture. Microsoft money is used to make games work on ARM.
Of course, no one knows the future. It may be a flop and this doesn’t work. Anyway, Intel was trading at 122 USD last Friday, ~110 today.
After reading my summary, I realized that Intel tried and failed 20 years ago with the x64 architecture. They got the license from AMD and kept churning CPUs, revenue and profits, but completely missed the smartphone CPU market. Intel stagnated since the release of x64 CPU and there has been marginal improvements since then, only a new core iX every once in a while and that’s it.
Today, Microsoft champions Nvidia(ARM) for PCs, Apple sells Apple Silicon CPUs (also ARM). Intel had near zero net income on 2023, loses on 2024 and 2025, and a Q12026 also with net income loss.
That was the PC story, the data center story is this one (made with google gemini). The ARM growth is because amazon, google and microsoft developed their own low power consumption CPUs using ARM IP.
Good night Intel. It was good while it lasted. Ahhh, the dawn of PC gaming when it was weird, LAN parties, Unreal Tournament and its endless iterations, MMORPGs, games with microtransanctions, good night.
… anyways …
… this company seems like a fail through the lens of FASTgraphs, but it keeps delivering for me.
