Arm Holdings PLC aims to gain more than 50 percent of the Windows PC market in five years, CEO Rene Haas said on Monday as Microsoft Corp and its hardware partners prepare to launch a new batch of computers based on the British chip designer’s technology.
Demand for use of Arm’s technology in PCs received a boost after Microsoft last month unveiled ambitious plans to launch a new line of PCs with artificial intelligence (AI) features to compete with Alphabet and Apple Inc.
Its flagship Windows operating system is now to run on chips designed by Arm, whose technology powered the rise of smartphones. Chips made by Intel Corp have dominated the PC industry for decades and if the Arm push succeeds, it would reorder the market.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
“Arm’s market share in Windows — I think, truly, in the next five years, it could be better than 50 percent,” Haas told Reuters in an interview.
Microsoft has made a significant commitment to ensure its alternative technology to Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) and Intel’s x86 technology is embraced by consumers, building a suite of software developer tools to make it possible to produce programs that function on Arm-based chips.
“They’ve [Microsoft] gone way beyond anything they had [in developer tools] and they really picked it up in the last couple of years,” Haas said. “They are very, very much committed from a software standpoint.”
Microsoft and hardware vendors are following in Apple’s footsteps. The company has achieved success following its introduction of Arm designs. It has sold machines with its “M Series” processors for roughly four years and those chips offer long battery life and speedy performance.
Qualcomm Inc has designed the first Arm-based chip to introduce consumers and businesses to the new Windows-based Arm machines, but other vendors will follow, Haas said.
Microsoft also has a battery of device makers signed on to sell machines with Arms-based system such as Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) and Dell Technologies Inc.
At his keynote speech delivered at the Computex Taipei trade show earlier on Monday, Haas said he expected 100 billion Arm devices worldwide would be ready for AI by the end of next year.
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