The Tech Company News Brief: It's a Bad Time to be Intel

As if the underwhelming launch of Intel's "next generation" processors wasn't bad enough, the Nasdaq-listed company now has to contend with competitors eating away at its market share.

In a development that spelled bad news for the long-time maker of processors, a media report last week detailed attempts by Nvidia to enter the personal computers market by designing its own CPUs based on ARM technology. Now, Nvidia is mostly known for its graphics cards, but this wouldn't be Team Green's first stint at designing processors: it's dabbled in producing integrated processors under the Tegra family — which also utilize ARM technology — to power things like the Nvidia Shield and even the Nintendo Switch!

By designing new processors, Nvidia is looking to capture the Windows market. Currently, Intel predominantly supplies all the hardware that is used in Windows-powered laptops, but Microsoft isn't cool with that. It wants to be able to diversify its supply, and it really badly wants processors with ARM technology. Why? Because they're great at powering things like laptops and tablet computers, but also, because Apple has had great success in using ARM-based processors to power its Mac computers, giving them an edge over competitors due to their battery life and speedy performance.

But that's not all. A note from Morgan Stanley earlier this year detailed how Apple's A-series and M-series chips were well-positioned to benefit from the rise of AI work loads being pushed to the edge. Basically, given Apple's efforts to optimize the integration of hardware, software, and services, the world's most valuable company has been able to roll out more powerful and efficient chips each year.

Now, with Apple wanting to transition AI-intensive tasks onto the edge, these ARM-based processors, which power things like the iPhone but also the iPad and the Mac, are primed to help users generate content on-device more quickly, and Microsoft knows. Which is why, it is encouraging companies like Nvidia to develop hardware that could help Windows-based hardware compete with the likes of Mac.

Nvidia's experience with producing graphic cards that are primed for AI workloads gives the company a bit of an edge, but Team Green isn't the only game in town. According to Reuters, AMD too is looking at developing ARM-based CPUs.

AMD's shtick has always been to stick it up to the likes of Intel and Nvidia on things like pricing and performance. When Intel and Nvidia get too cocky with their hardware and get too comfortable with their market position, AMD's there to remind them that it exists.

From our point of view, this trifecta of companies looking to compete against each other on things like CPUs, GPUs, and ARM-based technologies can be massively beneficial for consumers as it gives them more options and better prices. But, and more importantly, this looming competition could finally give these companies a reason to build bigger and better hardware instead of just lazy slapping new code onto silicon chips as if that would make them perform better than last gen hardware.

The race for hardware that blows everyone's minds is on, and Intel is lagging behind. Will Team Blue bring its house into order? Will it experience a comeback or will it be forgotten? We'll be here to let you know.

Intel ranked #50 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings this week. Nvidia was on the #66 spot.

In Other News.. 📰

• Resident Evil Village on the iPhone could be a preview of Apple’s gaming future — via The Verge.
• Google CEO Sundar Pichai to testify in US antitrust trial — via Reuters.
• Amazon’s Tye Brady discusses generative AI, humanoid robots and mobile manipulation — via TechCrunch.
• A look back at Elon Musk’s first year owning Twitter, in tweets — via CNN.
• Fidelity has marked down the value of Twitter/X by 65% — via Axios.
• Biden unveils U.S. government’s first-ever AI executive order — via CNBC.

And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️

— Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon

*All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page.