According to a recent Financial Times report, Arm is preparing to launch its own line of mobile processors in the coming months. The company’s first major customer is expected to be Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The official announcement of these new processors could take place by mid-year.
Arm’s primary focus with these chips is the data center and server market, rather than consumer-oriented, low-power processors. Manufacturing will be handled by Ampere Computing, a company that SoftBank (Arm’s parent company) is reportedly planning to acquire soon.
Unlike Qualcomm and Apple, which use Arm’s technology for consumer devices, Arm seems to be steering clear of directly competing in the AI PC and Windows-on-Arm segments to avoid potential conflicts of interest with its existing partners.
Manufacturing can happen with TSMC and Intel
TSMC is expected to handle production for Arm’s upcoming processors, though there’s still a possibility that Intel could be involved, particularly with its 18A manufacturing process, which has yet to debut in the CPU market.
If Arm enters the server CPU segment, it will be going head-to-head with Intel and AMD, at a time when the competition between these two giants is shifting. AMD surpassed Intel in the server market last year, marking a significant turning point in their long-standing rivalry.
As for AI accelerators in data centers, Nvidia remains the dominant force. While Arm’s entry into the server CPU space could shake up the industry, it is unlikely to impact Nvidia’s leadership in AI-focused hardware.
