Intel and AMD, the "arch-rivals," have surprisingly shaken hands and made peace, "united against a common foe"!
This took place on October 15th, in Seattle, North America, at Lenovo's Tech World 2024.
AMD CEO Lisa Su and Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger jointly announced the establishment of a new x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group with each other. The purpose of this group is to shape the future of x86, likely to defend x86 interests against ARM. The group also includes Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Lenovo as participating members.
In the x86 architecture versus ARM, who will win, and who has the advantage?
Rivals rarely join hands: The enemy is ARM
As the largest beneficiary of the x86 architecture, Intel pays special attention to this group. Gelsinger stated that x86 technology can easily adapt to new AI terminal applications such as laptops with AI capabilities.
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"The rumors about Intel's 'death' are greatly exaggerated. We are doing very well," said Gelsinger. "We see that the x86 architecture is thriving, and we are about to enter one of the most important periods of innovation for the x86 architecture. As the foundation of computing for decades, the x86 architecture is about to experience a period of customization, expansion, and scalability, which is the opportunity brought by artificial intelligence. Our ecosystem is strong and continuously developing."
Intel is the inventor of the x86 architecture, which has a history of 46 years and is the most common ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) used for general computing in PCs and data centers (IDC). Intel and AMD are the "only two" authorized manufacturers of mass-produced CPUs for the x86 architecture, thus forming a "dual peak" pattern in the development process.Intel was founded a year earlier than AMD, with Intel being established in 1968; a year later, AMD was also established.
Both companies' founders came from Fairchild Semiconductor. Intel's founders included Gordon Moore, who proposed Moore's Law, and Robert Noyce, the father of the integrated circuit, while AMD's founder was Jerry Sanders, a sales executive at Fairchild.
In the subsequent development process, in addition to initially obtaining a higher investment amount and occupying a larger market share advantage, Intel was unwilling to see AMD's increasing strength, so it stopped its technical authorization to AMD, leading to a falling out and legal disputes between the two parties.
At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, AMD's K7 and K8 processors were technically ahead of Intel; Intel fought back and gradually regained the situation in 2005 with the famous "Tick-Tock strategy", with product performance once again surpassing AMD.
In recent years, AMD and Intel each have their advantages: Intel has a greater technological advantage over AMD in PCs, especially laptops, while AMD has a greater advantage in the server market, especially in the AI server field, with overall performance far exceeding Intel in the x86 architecture ecosystem.
However, no matter how the two parties compete, their CPU architectures both use the x86 instruction set, and they must pay attention to the potential and gradually explicit threats from Apple and Qualcomm, which use the ARM architecture.
This is the practical basis for the two parties to make a cooperation declaration at Lenovo Tech World 2024.
How does ARM threaten the existing commercial interests of the x86 architecture?
Because ARM authorizes competitive computing architectures to Apple, Qualcomm, and companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, Qualcomm is vigorously promoting the X Elite based on the ARM architecture, and Apple is doing something similar, with their M-series chips targeting PCs; Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, etc., use ARM architecture CPUs to expand data center business.
The so-called threat is actually because ARM has adopted a software "bundling" provision similar to Nvidia's: all ARM chips can run all ARM software, regardless of the chip manufacturer.However, Intel and AMD have not adopted this approach, leading to the need for adjustments when running applications on devices equipped with their CPUs in order to ensure smooth operation. This results in differences in experience and cost, with applications failing to achieve "smooth and seamless" performance.
At the Lenovo Tech Conference in Seattle, Gelsinger stated, "Intel and AMD announced the formation of an x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group. For this, Dr. Lisa Su and I have reached a consensus that now is the optimal time."
Lenovo is also a member of this group, whose significance may stem from the traditional Chinese "mediation" role. As Gelsinger said, "Whether it's Lisa or me, what stage is more suitable for announcing this than Lenovo's?"
This ecosystem group involves many parties and holds a prominent position in the x86 ecosystem, gathering leaders from the entire ecosystem with the aim of shaping the future of x86, simplifying software development, ensuring interoperability and interface consistency, and providing developers with standard architectural tools, instruction sets, and a clear vision for the future.
According to the announcement from the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group, it will convene hardware and software companies to obtain their technical opinions on the "basic functions and features" of Intel and AMD chips to ensure they are "consistent and compatible" across a range of applications.
Clearly, Lenovo, including Intel and AMD, has recognized that the value of a thriving ecosystem is more important than ever before.
New Goal: Capturing the PC Chip Market
ARM poses a strategic threat to the upstream chip designers using the x86 architecture and the ecosystem formed by B-end companies such as PCs and IDCs that utilize the x86 architecture, which is rapidly shaking the foundations of the x86 ecosystem.ARM was established much later than Intel and AMD, only coming into existence in 1990, with its founders being 12 chip designers.
What kind of year was 1990? The term "Wintel" was officially coined in 1990, although the "Wintel Alliance" actually began in 1981.
In 1981, IBM launched the industry's first personal computer, which used Microsoft's DOS operating system and Intel's x86 chips, marking the beginning of the Wintel Alliance's cooperation.
Therefore, at the beginning of ARM's establishment, its technical route and goal were set on developing processor devices that could use low-cost batteries.
In 1993, ARM reached an agreement with Texas Instruments to apply its processors to early Nokia mobile phones, and began to develop into today's dominant smartphone architecture.
Nowadays, especially after Apple launched the epoch-making smartphone, ARM has occupied an absolute leading position in the smartphone chip architecture.
If the rise of Intel first benefited from IBM, and then benefited from Microsoft, then ARM's nobleman is obviously Apple.
Apple's launch of the iPhone reconstructed the entire mobile phone ecosystem and industry, achieving ARM's dominant position in the mobile field; since then, Apple began to attack the PC market in 2020, abandoning the x86 Intel chips that had been used for 16 years in Mac computers, and started to use its own processors based on the ARM architecture to this day, and Intel and AMD, which use the x86 architecture, have felt the chill.
According to the forecast data of the TechInsights report, the challenge of the ARM architecture to the long-term dominant position of x86 in the notebook market is becoming stronger and stronger.
The TechInsights report estimates that by 2025, ARM will account for 20% of global notebook shipments; by 2029, this share is expected to reach 40%. Driven by Apple's high-value products, ARM's revenue share in the notebook market is expected to reach 52%.The ARM architecture is renowned for its low-power design and high energy efficiency in mobile devices and embedded systems. In recent years, the ARM architecture has also made significant progress in performance, with some high-end ARM processors now rivaling mid-range x86 processors. This shift implies that when considering performance, the choice is no longer a simple platform selection issue, such as the convenience and smoothness of the integrated hardware and software mentioned earlier. The rise of ARM architecture will have a profound impact on the entire laptop market.
According to the latest data from Mercury Research, systems based on ARM currently account for over 10% of PC client sales. However, ARM's ambitions do not stop there. In June of this year, Rene Haas, the CEO of Arm Holdings, stated that ARM aims to capture over 50% of the Windows PC market within five years.
ARM: The Advantage is Mine!
If the impact of Apple and Qualcomm on x86 comes from the outside, then the defection of the staunch insider of the x86 camp—"Microsoft," Intel's closest partner, is undoubtedly a death knell for the x86 architecture. Microsoft and Intel once dominated the global PC market for over twenty years with the "Wintel Alliance," the most successful technical alliance in the PC industry. However, now Microsoft is promoting the dissolution of the "Wintel Alliance."
A report from Omdia points out that shipments of AI laptops with Microsoft's ARM chip architecture will soar from 800,000 units in 2024 to 58.8 million units in 2029, with an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of up to 136% from 2024 to 2029. It is particularly noteworthy that the annual growth rate of shipments for AI laptops with Microsoft's ARM chip architecture will reach 534% in 2025.Ever since the advent of ChatGPT-3.5, Generative AI (Generative Artificial Intelligence) technology has been rapidly rewriting the landscape of terminals, including PCs, as we knew it. This has also impacted the current and future interests of the x86 giants who benefited from the traditional PC ecosystem.
Currently, companies like Apple and Qualcomm are driving chip products based on the ARM architecture, such as Apple's M-series chips and Qualcomm's ARM-based AI PC products in collaboration with multiple manufacturers. These moves indicate that the ARM architecture is gaining support from industry leaders and gradually securing a foothold in the market.
The chip products based on the ARM architecture offer better compatibility among different manufacturers, which undoubtedly intensifies the challenge to x86. In contrast, while AMD and Intel's products also have cross-compatibility, they have not achieved the universal compatibility seen with ARM.
In addition to the drastic changes occurring in the PC market, news from the server market is also unfavorable for the x86 architecture. According to a report published by Bernstein Research in 2023, nearly 10% of servers worldwide contain ARM processors. At the same time, Amazon has deployed over 50% of ARM server CPUs in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers globally.
From 1990 to the present, ARM has gradually accelerated its development in mobile, low-power IoT, and automotive professional embedded fields, fueled by the rapid rise of the mobile market. It has then quickly penetrated the PC and server markets, which are dominated by x86 architecture, moving from the mobile market. Next-generation AI servers, AI personal computers, and of course, the traditional main market of smartphones, which have been overlaid with GenAI technology, all of these are based on the ARM architecture.
The joint announcement by Intel and AMD to establish a new x86 ecosystem advisory group is, in fact, a strong response to the increasing "pressure" from ARM. This also indirectly indicates that in this just-begun century-long duel between ARM architecture and x86 architecture, ARM has a more significant advantage, and Intel and AMD have adopted a defensive strategy.
The 19th-century British statesman Henry John Temple once said a famous quote: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."
There are no permanent friends or enemies between nations, only eternal interests, and pursuing these interests is our responsibility!
This statement is also applicable to the interest games of commercial companies. In this duel concerning the future survival, who will ultimately prevail, time will provide the final answer.