For the past four years, Apple has been running rings around the Windows PC world with its in-house computer chips, the M series, delivering performance per watt on Macs that was unheard of in PCs using chips from Intel.
When Apple announced a few years ago that it would ditch Intel — a longtime partner, and a once dominant semiconductor giant that has fallen on hard times — the move was greeted with scepticism, especially in the PC world.
After all, Apple silicon would be based on an architecture developed by the UK’s ARM Holdings that was historically used to power smartphones, not high-performance computers.
How could a relatively low-power chip possibly provide the sort of power needed for demanding desktop workloads such as high-resolution video editing, video encoding, 3D rendering and machine learning?
The naysayers were wrong: the shift away from Intel to an in-house, ARM-based architecture — with chips built by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) — allowed Apple to race ahead of its PC rivals. Apple silicon was more performant than Intel-powered computers, completing tasks faster while using significantly less energy.
The partnership with TSMC has helped Apple steal a march on PC rivals still dependent on Intel chips: the Taiwanese company, whose market value is now more than six times Intel’s, has in some respects taken the reins from the bruised US chipmaker in driving forward Moore’s law — the observation by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles roughly every two years.
Though it may be starting to run up against the laws of physics, Moore’s law has held true since 1975. It predicated the world-changing advances in technology over the past 50 years that have propelled productivity and spurred economic growth.
It’s these continued advances in semiconductor manufacturing that are propelling the world into the era of AI and smart machines, developments that will lead to a thorough blurring of the virtual and real worlds in the coming decades.
The scale of the problem for Intel may become evident next week when Microsoft unveils its new Surface laptops powered by ARM-based chips built by Qualcomm
The company Moore co-founded has lost its way, though. It’s trying valiantly to stage a comeback under CEO Pat Gelsinger, its former chief technology officer who led the development of the 80486 PC chip in the late 1980s and who returned in 2021 to try to steer the ship away from the rocks. But even with someone as smart as Gelsinger at the helm, Intel is struggling to keep pace with TSMC, which leads the world in advanced contract chip manufacturing for companies such as Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm and AMD. Intel has never been as weak or as vulnerable as it is today.
And things could get worse for the storied company: the next threat to its core business of computer processors is set to come from PC manufacturers keen for chips that can match Apple’s M series in performance per watt.
The scale of the problem for Intel may become evident next week when Microsoft — for decades a close partner of Intel’s — unveils new Surface laptops powered by ARM-based chips built by Qualcomm, a chipmaker better known for its processors used in Android smartphones. With its Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite chips, Qualcomm is taking direct aim at Apple silicon. These new processors will be paired with a version of Windows for ARM, details of which are also expected at Microsoft’s Build conference next week. If this pivot works, and the world embraces Windows on ARM, it spells big trouble for Intel.
Various media reports, citing sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans, have suggested the company is confident the Snapdragon Elite X chips will beat Apple’s M3 silicon. Could this be the reason Apple rushed out its new M4 processor last week in the new iPad Pro lineup instead of waiting for the new Macs later this year?
Apple’s M4 move comes a month ahead of its developer conference, where it is expected to unveil its long-overdue strategy to incorporate generative AI into its products. That event will come three weeks after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella uses a stage at Build to outline his company’s plans to turn Windows into the AI-powered operating system of the future and to commit the company fully to a future powered by ARM designs.
The age-old battle between the Mac and the PC has never been as exciting as it is right now. Everything is to play for as the thrilling next chapter of computing comes into view.
* McLeod is editor of TechCentral
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