An exterior view of the Nvidia headquarters in Santa Clara, California, on May 30, 2023.
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Intel stock dropped 3% Monday after Reuters reported that Nvidia and AMD were working on Arm-based PC chips. Arm stock rose nearly 5%, and Nvidia gained nearly 4% during late-day trading Monday.
Intel currently has the majority of the market for PC chips, with AMD coming in second. Sales of PC chips comprised over half of Intel’s revenue in the June quarter.
Intel’s PC chips are based on the x86 instruction set. Chips that use the Arm-based instruction set, like those for smartphones, often use significantly less power, which is critical for battery-powered devices.
Apple recently transitioned its laptop and PC chips from Intel to home-grown Arm processors, which led to a short-term boom in sales and longer battery life for the devices.
Nvidia could release a PC chip based on Arm as soon as 2025, according to Reuters. AMD’s Arm chip is also in planning, according to the report. These chips would be used in PCs running Microsoft Windows.
Switching software from the x86 instruction set to be compatible with an Arm-based processor can be time-consuming and difficult, but Windows can already easily run on an Arm chip.
Qualcomm has been working on its own Arm-based PC chips for years, although it has yet to gain significant sales traction. It has a launch event planned for later this week.
Last month, Arm went through an initial public offering, where it emphasized to investors that it has long-term agreements with top chipmakers to use its technology in their chips.
Arm and Nvidia declined to comment. Intel and AMD did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
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