You can see on the roadmap for 2024 that AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm are releasing some fantastic parts that will revolutionize how your PC works.
The hardware is trying to catch up with generative AI, making our smartphones, tablets, and PCs smarter. The real fight will be in PC CPUs, which will get more GPU and NPU capabilities — or VPU for Intel — resulting in a performance and battery life boost.
As these products are relatively new, the real benefits of using them may not be apparent until 2025, when software is updated to make use of the newest hardware features. I will lay out the battle for you and show that this will open the doors to new competitors, such as Nvidia, who will enter the market to change the landscape.
The last product I want to highlight is a new HP workstation that’s the quietest one I’ve tested.
Intel is the one to lose
Intel is the dominant vendor of mobile parts. This war will be fought on Intel’s traditional battleground.
Lunar Lake is the product to keep an eye on. It’s arguably Intel’s most significant PC platform advancement. This product would be perfect on paper if Intel weren’t forced to lay off employees and reduce salaries. Both of these events can be detrimental to productivity and morale and may even put in doubt the timely release date for this product in 2024.
The revolutionary nature of the product will also require a stronger campaign than Intel’s recent efforts. The company continues to struggle with retaining a chief marketer at a moment when they will require a Dennis Carter level of execution. Intel hasn’t adequately supported CMOs in the past decade, adding to concerns about its ability to launch this product.
Intel is a well-established vendor of mobile components. AMD is making gains, but a failure here could give AMD or Qualcomm a big boost in their attempts to overthrow Intel.
AMD
Recently, AMD has been firing on all cylinders. When AMD says something, it does it.
AMD has stated that it expects to launch a product similar to Intel’s Lunar Lake on the market by 2024 and will use generative AI to develop it.
In this context, the use of AI is important and could indicate a risk. AI continues to be an important driving force, and a vendor who actively uses it should have better insight into how to optimize their hardware. We also expect AI to play a major role in driving sales for the entire PC hardware category.
As with Intel, marketing is the key to AMD’s exposure. AMD has never been a marketing giant, but it is similar to most engineering-driven firms in that they underfund marketing. This means that AMD may not receive the credit it deserves for its technological advancements.
AMD could gain a significant share of the laptop market if they have a successful marketing campaign and if Intel fails to deliver (which is very likely, as we’ve seen above). This potential could be untapped if there is no interest in or the ability to run a marketing campaign. AMD will be the biggest winner if Intel fails to meet its deadlines. AMD already has a comparable alternative on the market.
Qualcomm
Qualcomm has a unique position in the smartphone market due to its dominance. It is working on a new PC processor co-developed by Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired for $1.4 billion in 2021. It is becoming more popular to integrate smartphones and PCs. Nobody should be better able to achieve this than a vendor who works aggressively to improve both platforms.
Qualcomm has a much smaller presence in the PC market than Intel or AMD, so its marketing requirements to make it work are higher. Qualcomm lost a design win to Intel recently, the HP Folio. This was despite the product offering a battery life of only 3% of earlier Snapdragon-based products.
Qualcomm’s marketing requirements are higher because Qualcomm is different. Qualcomm is ARM-based. Intel and AMD both use x86 architecture, but Qualcomm is ARM-based. ARM doesn’t like Qualcomm because Qualcomm is not paying enough for a PC license. The lawsuit between ARM and Qualcomm could be detrimental to the initiative, as Qualcomm is already the least competitive of the three vendors.
Here we are at…
Nvidia
Nvidia’s plans to acquire ARM failed, leaving it high and dry in the CPU area but still executing well with its GPU product line. Nvidia licenses from ARM as well, but due to its smaller commitment, it can switch to RISC V, an alternative product to ARM which appears to be free of the financial problems left by the failed acquisition.
Nvidia may be a wildcard, but it has more AI than all three vendors combined. So whatever they do is likely to significantly impact the market. The RTX-4060 card, released in November 2018, is a great example of what a vendor can do for a low price.
With the right combination between CPU, GPU, and NPU (neural processor unit), Nvidia could steal a large portion of the market from its competitors. Nvidia is moving closer to becoming a solutions vendor, but we don’t know what will replace ARM.
Wrapping up
2025 will see massive laptop chip battles, with Intel entrenched but weakened. AMD is performing well but continues to underfund the marketing. Qualcomm has not yet launched its next-generation part for the PC market and appears to be underfunding its marketing.
These vendors could take over the market if they can meet their deadline objectives and fund marketing campaigns to generate demand for new parts.
RISC V is also a wildcard that could shift the market away from x86 towards a more AI-centric, forward-looking alternative.
We should all be happy to know that by 2024 we will have laptops with a battery life of 20+ hours without compromising performance. I also hope to see new designs that embrace sustainability and reduce electronic waste.