There’s a challenger to Qualcomm in the Windows on Arm chip race

The well-known brands in processors are Intel, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm; but, in 2025, MediaTek, a well-liked but lesser-known company, may try to overtake them. According to Reuters, a Taiwanese chip manufacturer is now working on an AI PC chipset designed just for Windows PCs that will be released in late 2025. At the moment, MediaTek wants in on the rumored MacBook Air-beating buzz around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite.

The new MediaTek processor is allegedly geared at the same Microsoft Copilot Plus PC platform that Qualcomm helped in launching with Microsoft, according to Reuters. Since Microsoft’s exclusivity deal with Qualcomm for Arm-based versions of Windows is finally ending this year, there appears to be a space for chipmakers such as MediaTek.

Not only is MediaTek profiting on the terminated Qualcomm agreement, but Nvidia and AMD also want to release Arm-based PC CPUs by 2025. However, MediaTek might also be contributing to that Nvidia chip’s power! According to a report from Taiwan’s United Daily News last month, MediaTek is helping to develop that separate chip, as confirmed by Reuters today. Even the possibility that MediaTek and Nvidia are developing a gaming chip the size of a Steam Deck is rumored.

Given that Nvidia already produces its own Arm chips, why would it require MediaTek? (Nvidia Tegra chips have been used in the Nintendo Switch since its debut.) I’m not positive about it. Being a fabless chipmaker, MediaTek does not produce its own chips. Regarding MediaTek’s independent chip, Reuters reports that it employs Arm’s “ready-made designs,” which most likely means that it utilizes Arm’s pre-designed processing cores rather than ones that MediaTek developed independently.

Speaking of those ready-made designs, Qualcomm could be able to use them to power yet another Windows+Arm competitor. According to Arm executives, a customer of their own built a chip in about nine months using ready-made parts for a design that was already finished, unlike MediaTek’s, which isn’t, according to Reuters.