To cope with the pressure from Arm and RISC-V, Intel and AMD will join forces
On October 16th, two leading processor manufacturers, Intel and AMD, jointly announced the establishment of an x86 ecosystem consulting group. The group brings together industry technology leaders Linus Torvalds and Tim Sweeney, as well as numerous partners who have joined as founding members, including Broadcom, Dell, Google, HP, Lenovo, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat. Intel stated that the consulting group will be committed to finding innovative ways to expand the x86 ecosystem, achieve cross platform compatibility, simplify software development, and enhance compatibility, predictability, and consistency among x86 products.
Gartner Research Vice President Sheng Linghai believes that this move is mainly aimed at further consolidating the competitiveness of the x86 camp in the data center field. Sun Wenjian, founder and CEO of this chip technology, also stated that the development of the Arm camp is too rapid, which has led the x86 camp to unite and resist. However, Sun Wenjian emphasized that Intel and AMD are competitors in many fields.
Data shows that the long-standing dominance of x86 architecture in the data center server market is facing challenges from Arm and RISC-V architectures. In recent years, with the increasing demand for digital transformation such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, many enterprises have begun to turn to Arm architecture. This has led to an increase in the proportion of cloud servers adopting Arm architecture. Jibang Consulting predicts that the penetration rate of Arm architecture in data center servers will reach 22% by 2025. At the same time, RISC-V IP and chip companies such as Alibaba, SiFive, and Intel are constantly launching high-performance computing products to expand the data center market. This requires the x86 camp to face up to external challenges.
Data shows that the long-standing dominance of x86 architecture in the data center server market is facing challenges from Arm and RISC-V architectures. In recent years, with the increasing demand for digital transformation such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, many enterprises have begun to turn to Arm architecture. This has led to an increase in the proportion of cloud servers adopting Arm architecture. Jibang Consulting predicts that the penetration rate of Arm architecture in data center servers will reach 22% by 2025. At the same time, RISC-V IP and chip companies such as Alibaba, SiFive, and Intel are constantly launching high-performance computing products to expand the data center market. This requires the x86 camp to face up to external challenges.
In the press release, Intel CEO Pat Kissinger emphasized that the x86 architecture and ecosystem are at a critical moment of decades of development, requiring further customization capabilities, compatibility, and scalability to meet current and future customer needs. AMD Chairman and CEO Su Zifeng also stated that the establishment of the x86 ecosystem advisory group will ensure the continued development and evolution of the x86 architecture as the preferred computing platform for developers and customers.
It is understood that the consulting group aims to collaborate with industry leaders to shape the future of x86 and promote innovation among developers through a more unified set of instructions and architectural interfaces. This measure will enhance the compatibility, predictability, and consistency of x86 products. To achieve this goal, the group will seek technical opinions from the x86 hardware and software community on basic features and characteristics. Collaboration will help create consistent and compatible implementations of key x86 architecture features and programming models, and extend to all departments (including data centers, cloud, clients, edge, and embedded devices), ultimately bringing downstream benefits to customers.
It is understood that the consulting group aims to collaborate with industry leaders to shape the future of x86 and promote innovation among developers through a more unified set of instructions and architectural interfaces. This measure will enhance the compatibility, predictability, and consistency of x86 products. To achieve this goal, the group will seek technical opinions from the x86 hardware and software community on basic features and characteristics. Collaboration will help create consistent and compatible implementations of key x86 architecture features and programming models, and extend to all departments (including data centers, cloud, clients, edge, and embedded devices), ultimately bringing downstream benefits to customers.
The establishment of the consulting group is expected to produce many results. Firstly, it can provide customers with more choices and stronger compatibility in hardware and software, enabling them to benefit more quickly from the improvements brought by the new cutting-edge features; Secondly, the architecture guidelines can be simplified to enhance the software consistency and interface performance of Intel and AMD's x86 product families; Thirdly, enable new features to be more widely and efficiently integrated into operating systems, frameworks, and applications.
Intel and AMD have had multiple industry collaborations in history, with a focus on platform level advancements, standard introductions, and security vulnerability mitigation within the x86 ecosystem. In addition, Intel and AMD have also had many collaborations on industry technology standards such as PCI, PCIe, and ACPI. However, facing new competitors this time, there may be more new differences in the cooperation between the two sides.
Intel and AMD have had multiple industry collaborations in history, with a focus on platform level advancements, standard introductions, and security vulnerability mitigation within the x86 ecosystem. In addition, Intel and AMD have also had many collaborations on industry technology standards such as PCI, PCIe, and ACPI. However, facing new competitors this time, there may be more new differences in the cooperation between the two sides.