Sometimes to find out what's going on at a company, the best source of information is its competition.
In a recent interview with the Verge's, Rene Haas, CEO of Arm Holdings covered a wide array of topics including the AI PC race, politics, and the recent troubles at Intel.
For those uninitiated in the world of CPU architecture, Arm Holdings is a semiconductor and software design firm based in Cambridge, England. The company's designs have been the power behind Apple's M-series Silicon and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X platform.
While Haas's insights into Arm and the future of AI PCs are certainly worth examining, as is his commentary on how Trump's second administration could change the tech industry, Haas's comments on Intel were what immediately grabbed our attention.
What Rene Haas said about Intel
We all want to know what's going on at Intel these days. It has only been a few weeks since Pat Gelsinger's abrupt resignation as CEO of Intel.
When asked about Intel, Haas elaborated, "I guess at the highest level, as someone who’s been in the industry my whole career, it is a little sad to see what’s happening from the perspective of Intel as an icon."
However, Intel's biggest dilemma according to Haas is "how to disassociate from being either a vertical company or a fabless company, to oversimplify it... And [former Intel CEO] Pat [Gelsinger] had a strategy that was very clear that vertical was the way to win."
It's worth noting that Gelsinger's strategy for Intel was intended to be a multi-year strategy. One that he did not get to see to the finish.
Haas, admitting to his own personal bias as the CEO of a vertical company, supported Gelsinger's intention to turn Intel into a multi-faceted powerhouse. "My personal bias is that vertical integration can be a pretty powerful thing, and if they can get that right, they would be in an amazing position. But the cost associated with it is so high that it may be too big of a hill to climb."
What Rene Haas said about an Arm takeover
One of the many rumors circling around Intel this year is the potential for an Arm or Qualcomm takeover of the company.
When asked by The Verge about a possible merger directly, Haas dodged the question, stating only "I’m not going to comment on the rumors that we’re going to buy it."
However, Haas did double-down on the idea of Intel and Arm working together in the future. Because, "if you’re a vertically integrated company and the power of your strategy is that you have a product and fabs, you have a potentially huge advantage in terms of cost versus the competition. When Pat was the CEO, I did tell him more than once, 'You ought to license Arm. If you’ve got your own fabs, fabs are all about volume and we can provide volume.'"
What this means for the future of computing
Despite all the rumors of buyouts for Intel, it's worth noting that Intel still makes up a solid 70% of the market share for CPUs across desktops and laptops. AMD is the main competitor for Intel on desktops and servers. Even in the laptop space, Intel has a solid lead over AMD, Qualcomm, and Apple. While AMD, Qualcomm, and Apple are all performing well and AMD has made many inroads in chipping away at Intel's dominance, it isn't like Intel is dead in the water.
It's no surprise Haas dodged the takeover claims. If a possible merger were in the works, that would be kept under wraps while the legal proceedings were underway. However, the rumors of a takeover don't seem to have much proof backing them outside of pure speculation.
What is more salient about Haas's comments on Intel relates to the Intel Foundry. Haas argues that becoming a "vertical" company with multiple avenues of production and both design and production locked down would be the more advantageous position. This essentially backs former CEO Pat Gelsinger's strategy for the company.
And it isn't like Intel has notably backed out of the foundry business. Intel's interim co-CEO, David Zinsner, said earlier this month that Intel's next CEO will have experience in the foundry and product sides of the business.
Of course, if Intel did get an Arm license, that would make the AI PC world even more interesting. After all, Nvidia and AMD also hold Arm licenses for chips we haven't seen yet. If Intel also made an Arm-based chipset, we'd have Arm designs with every major chip manufacturer since Apple and Qualcomm already use Arm architecture in their current silicon.
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