-
Close sources reveal that MediaTek is developing a rival for the Snapdragon
-
We will still take a while to see it: the exclusivity agreement between Microsoft and Qualcomm does not expire until the end of 2025
The appearance of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft has already made it clear that others would be added to Qualcomm’s proposal, but this is being encouraged in a notable way.
Intel and AMD prepare their move. In Microsoft’s presentation it was already revealed that other chip manufacturers were also raising their proposals. We immediately learned much more about these bets: the AMD Ryzen AI 300 and the Intel Lunar Lake, both with x86 architecture, will have powerful NPUs. These chips will offer more than 45 TOPS of performance in the field of AI, and that will mean that we are facing some of the most interesting proposals from these manufacturers.
MediaTek gets into the fight. But according to Reuters MediaTek is developing a chip for PCs run by Windows. It will theoretically be a competitor to the Qualcomm Snapdragon
Until 2025, nothing. The MediaTek chips for future Copilot+ PCs will arrive in 2025. The reason is simple: the company has to wait for the exclusivity agreement that Qualcomm and Microsoft maintained until now regarding the development of PCs with ARM chips to expire. Of course: according to sources close to the plans, it does not seem entirely clear that Microsoft has approved these chips for use in Copilot+ PC equipment.
An exclusivity that has been a bottleneck. As indicated in that Reuters article, in 2016 Microsoft contacted Qualcomm to work on PCs based on ARM chips. The two companies reached an exclusivity agreement that resulted in the Snapdragon 8cx chips. They were used on some computers, but their performance, although decent, was hindered by an ARM version of Windows that was still green. Things have changed a lot in recent years, but that exclusivity prevented there from being competition in the development of those chips.
And wait, NVIDIA is coming. As if that were not enough, there is another semiconductor giant that seems to be preparing its own chips for those Copilot+ PCs. This is NVIDIA, which according to rumors is preparing a very promising ARM SoC. As with MediaTek, these chips will not arrive until 2025, but they could become tough competitors for current proposals from Intel, AMD and Qualcomm.
Bad news for Apple. Since presenting its M1 chips, Apple has been able to boast of the advantages that the ARM architecture offered in its Macs. Especially in terms of efficiency. The emergence of Qualcomm chips and the enormous interest in AI features have encouraged manufacturers. Future ARM (and x86) Windows laptops are expected to offer efficiency and power that will put Apple in a lot of trouble to continue competing. The battle will become especially tough, and the winners will be the users.
In Xataka | Criticism of Recall has led Microsoft to make three important changes: this is how the tool will finally work
