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Early revisions to the Apple Silicon chip that powers the new MacBook Air M1, MacBook Pro M1, and Mac mini are brilliant, and it appears that Apple isn’t the only company adopting ARM-based chips. According to From Bloomberg Sources, Microsoft is also exploring the possibility of making its own chips, which could leave Intel on the sidelines.
While the report emphasizes that the primary focus of any new chip would be for servers that power the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, one of the site’s sources added that it was “possible” that this could lead to a first-hand ARM chip for Surface products. This is referred to as “another chip” earlier in the article, so it doesn’t appear to be a one-size-fits-all processor.
As expected, Microsoft did not confirm the existence of the project when approached for comment. “Because silicon is a critical component of technology, we continue to invest in our own capabilities in areas such as design, fabrication, and tooling, while fostering and strengthening partnerships with a wide range of chip vendors,” said Frank. Shaw from Microsoft.
Despite the nod to third-party partnerships there, this is undeniably bad news for Intel, which provides most of the processors for Azure cloud services at the moment, as well as chips for most of the Surface range. (Microsoft introduced a Surface powered by Ryzen Laptop 3 last year.) Intel shares closed 6.3% lower, in part thanks to the leak.
An ARM-powered Surface could work in two ways. On the one hand, the new Apple M1 MacBooks have been a revelation, delivering impressive power and longer battery life than previous Intel models. And the benchmarks suggest that Windows 10 works well on Apple hardware too, although due to licensing issues, consumers are currently unable to easily see it for themselves.
Apple’s Surface Pro X is powered by an ARM chip with the SQ2, which is jointly developed by Microsoft and Qualcomm, but its performance and battery life lag far behind the latest Apple Silicon laptops. So it may be time for Microsoft to take matters into their own hands.
